HONOLULU — In 1996, the highly respected Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that the three words Americans used most often to describe Hillary Rodham Clinton were “intelligent,” “smart” and a third word that “rhymes with rich.” Clinton’s evolution as a college student at Wellesley College in the late 1960s indicates that she is now, as she was then, not only knowledgeable, but thoughtful; not only intelligent, but compassionate.

Hillary Rodham was, in fact, much like many students here at the University of Hawaii – increasingly aware of the painful inequalities in America, conscious of their complexity, yet dissatisfied with passing the less fortunate on the other side.

The nation needs thoughtfulness like hers in 2008. Faced with problems as complex as Iraq and global terrorism, we don’t need someone who claims to have all the answers, because no one has all the answers. Instead, we need a president who asks the right questions; whomever he or she is, the next president must ask the right questions.

Hillary Rodham started college a passionate supporter of conservative Republican candidate Barry Goldwater. His book was shelved in her dorm room, and her first involvement in college politics was in the Young Republicans.

However, through the influence of her hometown Methodist minister and her friends, Rodham moved to the left of center of the GOP, while becoming a leader in student government. Through these years, Rodham was torn between her values and her devotion to those of her father and his Republican Party. In early 1968, she campaigned for antiwar Democrat Gene McCarthy. Yet, that spring, she helped moderate Republican Nelson Rockefeller try to deny Richard Nixon the presidential nomination. That summer, she interned for the House Republican Conference in Washington, D.C.

When Martin Luther King was killed in April 1968, first she cried, and then she called her friend who headed the black student organization on campus. Facing demands to shut down the school in protest, she persuaded students to instead organize to recruit more black students and professors (then totaling zero).

Attending the 1968 Republican National Convention that August was apparently the last straw for Rodham’s GOP leanings. Not the sting of war, but the stench of racism rising from Nixon supporters, ultimately drove Hillary Rodham from the GOP.

Although she was forthcoming in her memoir, Clinton’s college days receive little mention in her campaign. This is presumably to avoid drawing attention to the absurd stereotype that she was a radical leftist in college. However, her difficulty with this period also helps show how women are not truly equal in America, otherwise she would not worry that expressing her compassion would undermine her image of toughness. This seems to leave her with no past, only an unbridled will for power, which she tries to screen from view by pretending to care about other people. A first-class “rhymes with rich.”

In reality, Clinton’s life as an undergrad shows that her concern for others started long before her political ambitions. Speaking at the Wellesley commencement in 1969, she confronted the U.S. senator who had just spoken from the same podium, demanding both compassion and intelligence in relieving poverty. She charged: “What does it mean to hear that 13.3 percent of the people in this country are below the poverty line? That’s a percentage…. How can we talk about percentages and trends?” She insisted that ending poverty meant “human reconstruction,” not just “social reconstruction.”

Yet, through the 1960’s, Hillary Rodham constantly insisted that social programs must not deprive people of their chance to develop their personal potential. That belief, along with her awareness of the rising tide of poverty in her city of Chicago and across the nation, made her a “Goldwater Girl” in 1964.

Critics of Clinton’s inconsistency forget that when she became a Democrat, she kept her Republican values. She is not a liberal true-believer, and she never will be. Instead, she brings a thoughtful perspective to the contradictions of America, while reflecting them.