NEW YORK STATE -- There's been a common thread throughout Hillary Clinton's career -- a deep commitment to healthcare and children's and women's rights.

"Early on, she was really a prominent scholar activist in the area of children's rights were very heavily cited and still continue to be cited," said Grant Reeher, a Political Science professor at Syracuse University.

Reeher says her passions in these fields can be seen in her role as Arkansas' first lady and in the White House. And while her healthcare reform efforts failed then, she was able to break some ground in her role as a senator.

"One of the main things that she did was she forced the FDA to look at emergency contraception, forced them to make it available," said NY Now President Marcia Pappas.

But Clinton's road to the Senate was not without bumps.

"There was great concern over whether or not she could represent the state, whether this was really fair for this to happen and what were the circumstances motivating this," said Governor David Paterson.

But the governor and other leaders say she proved nay-sayers wrong.

“Just hope that we can find an individual in this state that continues this service at the height and the level that she has provided," Paterson said.

Even constituents beyond her core base of women and minority supporters backed Clinton, won over by what they saw as her commitment to revitalize upstate, even as vocal critics say she fell short of her promises to bring thousands of jobs to the region.

"She was also able to look at other people from around the state the people she represented and to do things for them as well," Pappas said.

Clinton's work getting aid to victims of the aftermath of 9-11 and her late, but outspoken stand against the Iraq War is notable, but still, there were short-comings in her role as senator, especially in the face of what was often viewed as her intense ambition to get back to the White House.

"As a senator, she had a fairly limited amount of time to produce a lot of legislative accomplishments," Reeher said.

Still, what she managed to accomplish overall is undeniable.

"The first former first lady to run for public office, the first female senator from New York,” Reeher said. “As a presidential candidate, she went farther than any woman had gone before."

Reeher says it's her core resolve, which brought her to this latest position of power and which will help her succeed in it.

"She's already so well known in the world. She knows the world leaders. She has a very high profile around the world," said Reeher.

But after such a bitter primary battle against Barack Obama, many wonder if she'll be able to resist the temptation to insert her own agenda, rather than carry his.

"You've got someone with a lot of ambition. You've got someone with a huge political base. So the challenge is to remember what this role is about and to work cooperatively with president Obama in advancing Obama's initiatives in the world," said Reeher.

So while Senator Clinton may have used New York as a stepping stone, she's going with the blessings of state democratic leaders. All eyes watching to see how she how she fares on the international stage.