In New Role, Clinton's Former Experience Won't Help Much

Dec. 2, 2008 — -- When running against now President-elect Barack Obama in the Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton asked voters whom they would want in the White House answering an emergency phone call at 3 a.m.

The voters resoundingly chose Obama to be on the receiving end of that phone call. But with her nomination Monday to become secretary of state, the Democratic senator from New York will likely be the one dialing the phone and waking the president with news of an international incident.

Clinton made an effort during the campaign to portray Obama as inexperienced on matters of foreign policy while touting her own thin credentials during her time spent as first lady.

The litany of foreign trips and speeches made while she was first lady, experts told ABC News.com, probably did little to teach her much about policymaking. Nevertheless, her proximity to the Oval Office -- having perhaps the closest professional working relationship any first lady has ever had with her husband -- gave her perspective on the kinds of information a president needs when making critical foreign policy decisions.

In addition to her eight years in the White House, Clinton has spent the past seven in the Senate, serving on the Armed Services Committee and has, in that capacity, traveled to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But beyond foreign policy experience, Clinton brings something else to the table, said Robert Lieber, professor of government and international affairs at Georgetown University -- her good name and a familiarity to the leaders of the world.

"She brings some of the goodwill foreign leaders remember from the Clinton days, and she brings the goodwill many world leaders have already expressed about Obama," Lieber said. "When world leaders meet with a secretary of state, they want to believe they're dealing with a heavy -- a person of substance who matters politically. She's got that."

As first lady, Clinton "was not a formal decision maker," Lieber said. "But the Clintons were always a team. They both are highly intelligent. Hillary brought drive and discipline, and Bill Clinton brought a sometimes unruly charisma. It's inconceivable that she wouldn't have been privy to what he was seeing and thinking."