Master of the Senate: guess who's become the go-to Democrat on Capitol Hill?

• Author: Reed, Scott

When Hillary Rodham Clinton ran for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by New York's Pat Moynihan, she stumbled like a novice on the campaign trail. She began her race with an endless "listening tour" of New York State where the outspoken former First Lady said virtually nothing. She confused Erie, Pennsylvania, with Erie County, New York, during a radio interview. In a transparent ploy to establish her New York roots, she donned a Yankees cap and received the Bronx cheer. And in an awkward attempt to court the influential Jewish vote, she alternately kissed and then kissed off the wife of Yasser Ararat. She only won the election, many believed, because of the ineptitude of her second-string opponent and the residual affection New York voters had for her husband.

Republican senators--most of whom voted to remove her husband from office and many of whom investigated her on Whitewater, Travelgate, and secret health care reform meetings--promised the new senator a chilly reception. "When this Hillary gets to the Senate," mused then-Majority Leader Trent Lott, "she will be one of one hundred, and we won't let her forget it." Expectations for Senator Hillary Clinton were decidedly low and her greatest impact, it seemed, would be her value in Republican direct mail fundraising appeals.

Three years later, Hillary Clinton has emerged as a giant in the Senate. Many of the same Republicans who voted to convict Mr. Clinton--such established Clinton-haters as Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire--have actually coauthored legislation with Mrs. Clinton. More than a dozen Republican Senators have stood with her at press conferences because Hillary guarantees media attention. And the typical comments Republican Senators now make about Hillary Clinton sound like they were written for Hallmark cards.

While she has charmed her Republican antagonists, she has seduced her Democratic colleagues. In her first months in the Senate, she gushed and awed at Democratic dinosaur Robert Byrd of West Virginia. She was appropriately deferential to liberal lion Ted Kennedy. And she politely demurred as her media-savvy New York colleague Chuck Schumer elbowed her out of the way before the television cameras.

As important as interpersonal relations are in the clubby Senate, Hillary has become a powerhouse because she came to Washington with a plan to be successful and has executed it with a determination not seen since Lyndon...