Candidate's surprising past

She was a Brownie and Girl Scout, on the student council, wrote for the school newspaper and was named to the National Honor Society.

At 13, she helped canvass Chicago's South Side, where she found evidence of electoral fraud against Richard Nixon in the 1960 election -- an election so close that might have put "Tricky Dick" in the white house eight years sooner than he was actually sworn in.

She was active in the Young Republicans, and in 1964, was a "Goldwater Girl," she wrote, "right down to my cowgirl outfit and straw cowboy hat emblazoned with the slogan "AuH20."

Not even Nebraska voted for Goldwater in 1964.

She devoured Goldwater's book "The Conscience of a Conservative," influenced by her father and her high school history teacher, both fervent anticommunists.

She went on to serve as president of the Young Republicans at her college, and supported the elections of New York Mayor John Lindsay and Sen. Edward Brook.

But a few years after meeting Martin Luther King Jr. and becoming involved in the civil rights at anti Vietnam War movements, she worked for Democrat Eugene McCarthy for president in 1968 and wrote to her youth minister that she saw herself as a "mind conservative and a heart liberal."

She went on the attend the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami as a supporter of Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, but was upset by Nixon's attacks on Rockefeller and what she saw as "veiled" racist messages, and became a Democrat.

You probably know, or may have guessed, that we're describing Hillary Rodham Clinton, who finally announced her candidacy for president this weekend.

Hillary Clinton probably doesn't have much of a better chance than Goldwater of carrying Nebraska if she does succeed in landing the Democratic nomination for president.

But before we dismiss any candidate because of their current image, we would do well to find out about how they came to have their current beliefs.