The cult of Hillary has restored America's mission to the world

Hillary Clinton's career is one of history's finest examples of turning a loss into a win. In 2008, she was beaten in her attempt to become America's first woman president, in a campaign that seemed to drain every last ounce of integrity from the Clinton brand. She ran from the Left, ran from the Right, spent roughly $212 million, and even tried to pass herself off as a "drinking man's Democrat" by knocking back shots in an Indiana bar.

It seemed that Clinton's career was over. But today, as Secretary of State, she has reinvented herself as the captain of the one area of policy in which the administration is popular with the voters: foreign affairs. A new cult of Hillary has emerged around a hard-headed yet compassionate stateswoman who has restored reason and credibility to America's global mission. We're living as much in the Age of Clinton as we are the Age of Obama.

When the idea of becoming Barack Obama's Secretary of State was first put to her in November 2008, Hillary replied in an email: "Not in a million years." But Obama was determined to put her in his so-called Cabinet of Rivals, and avoided her telephone call turning the post down by pretending to be in the lavatory. Eventually, his invocation of public duty won her round.

Hillary's relationship with the new President wasn't close and the tensions were exacerbated by her husband. Edward Klein's recent biography of Obama, The Obama Identity, claims that Bill Clinton called Barack "an amateur" and tried to persuade his wife to run against him in the 2012 primaries. Nevertheless, Obama and Clinton turned out to be a good team, partly because Hillary happens to be a diplomat par excellence. She has travelled more than any Secretary of State before her, and ruthlessly exploits the fame and contacts that she acquired as a First Lady.

After WikiLeaks released US diplomatic cables trashing the reputations of various foreign leaders, she was happy to massage hurt egos. According to Vanity Fair, when she met up with Silvio Berlusconi in Kazakhstan, he unloaded on her. "The [Italian] press is all over me," he moaned. "They think the US is saying that I'm vain and stay out all night… I had such a good relationship with Beel, George, and Barack - how can they say this about me?" Clinton told him that the WikiLeaks cables were written by low-level personnel and not to worry: "Look, Silvio, you and I have been friends for 15 years. I've been there. Nobody has had more things alleged - true or untrue - than me." Few other politicians could have said that and meant it. Berlusconi was reassured and the US-Italian relationship was healed.

Clinton and Obama also work well together because their world views are similar. Observers have struggled to define the contradictions of the Obama doctrine. He withdrew troops from Iraq, but not from Afghanistan. He was happy to lend a hand to the removal of Gaddafi, but reluctant to act in Syria and Egypt. The administration insists that it's practising policy without doctrine - a welcome break from the neo-conservative utopianism of the Bush years. The War on Terror has been replaced with a tactical policing operation. Instead of using US troops to track insurgents, the administration now relies on assassination by drone strikes.

The doctrine is pragmatism tempered with humanitarianism, and the latter reflects many of Clinton's lifelong causes. Compare the bills that Obama and Clinton sponsored when they were senators and you'll find that Obama's tended to be grand statements about jobs, peace and the American Way, whereas Clinton's were focused on improving the lives of women and children in the fields of nutrition and education. As Secretary of State, her diplomatic accomplishments are plenty: isolating Iran and Iraq, building a coalition to topple Gaddafi. But she has also created $1.2 billion of State Department programmes to help women. Reducing sex trafficking and increasing female representation in Iraq's government are new priorities. As she told Newsweek: "I believe that the rights of women and girls is the unfinished business of the 21st century."

The result is that Clinton has done something Obama has failed to do: maintain the affection of liberals while also reaching out to moderates. It comes as no surprise that commentators have floated the idea of Obama dumping Vice President Biden and replacing him with Clinton at this year's nominating convention.

More likely is that Clinton's eyes are on 2016. At 68, she'll still be young enough (Ronald Reagan was 69 when he ran in 1980), and she'd enter a presidential race with far more goodwill than she had in 2008. Ironically, it might be her role in Obama's administration that makes a Hillary presidency possible. For her time as Secretary of State has lent her something not often associated with the Clinton brand: dignity and respect from all quarters.