“She was deferential, determined to show them how serious she was,” Bernstein said in an interview. “Was she good at delivering the bacon to her constituents? Absolutely. Did she deliver important legislation on the major issues of the day? Absolutely not.”

Building Bridges

Clinton championed causes for which she could build bipartisan consensus, Bernstein said.

She teamed with Republican senators: Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, to extend military health benefits to 356,000 National Guard and Reserve members, and Mike DeWine of Ohio to force drug companies to conduct pediatric safety tests.

Clinton sponsored bipartisan legislation with New Jersey Representative Mike Ferguson to provide respite care to families caring for disabled adults and children. She took up an issue advocated by former Republican Senator Bob Dole of Kansas and, with Democrat Chris Dodd of Connecticut sponsored an extension of the Family and Medical Leave Act to give military families six months to care for the wounded.

“She was a very hard worker, and you could count on her to have done her homework,” said former Republican Senator John Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, which she joined in 2003. “She was very conscious of family issues as they related to the men and women of the armed services.”

Her ambition to be president probably motivated what she now calls a mistake -- her approval of the October 2002 Iraq war resolution that gave former President George W. Bush permission to invade the country, Bernstein said.

In her 2014 memoir, “Hard Choices,” Clinton said she “absolutely” regretted the vote. It was fundamental to Obama’s 2008 victory against her for the Democratic presidential nomination. Sanders has used it against her this year.
Home Field

In New York, however, Clinton leads Sanders 55 percent to 41 percent among registered Democrats, according to an April 11 Marist College poll.  Her tenure as senator gives her personal connections and voter recognition, said Stuart Rothenberg, founding editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg and Gonzales Political Report in Washington.

“Voters in the state feel like they know her, they voted for her,” Rothenberg said.