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Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, pictured in October 2012, has become one of the most powerful people in Washington. Here's a look at her life and career through the years.

Before she married Bill Clinton, she was Hillary Rodham. Here, Rodham talks about student protests in 1969, which she supported in her commencement speech at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Rodham, center, a lawyer for the Rodino Committee, and John Doar, left, chief counsel for the committee, bring impeachment charges against President Richard Nixon in the Judiciary Committee hearing room at the U.S. Capitol in 1974.

Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton helps first lady Rosalynn Carter on a campaign swing through Arkansas in June 1979. Also seen in the photo is Hillary Clinton, center background.

Bill Clinton embraces his wife shortly after a stage light fell near her on January 26, 1992. They talk to Don Hewitt, producer of the CBS show "60 Minutes."

With Hillary, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton waves to the crowd at his victory party after winning the Illinois primary on March 17, 1992.

Al Gore, Tipper Gore, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton wave to supporters at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York, after they gave speeches on family values on August 23, 1992.

Clinton gestures at a campaign rally November 3, 1992, in Denver. After taking office, President Clinton chose his wife to head a special commission on health care reform, the most significant public policy initiative of his first year in office.

Bill and Hillary Clinton have a laugh together on Capitol Hill in 1993.

Clinton pours herself a cup of tea in 1993 while testifying to the Senate Education and Labor Committee about health care reform.

Clinton speaks at George Washington University on September 10, 1993, in Washington during her husband's first term.

Clinton waves to the media on January 26, 1996, as she arrives at federal court in Washington for an appearance before a grand jury. The first lady was subpoenaed to testify as a witness in the investigation of the Whitewater land deal in Arkansas.

Hillary Clinton looks on as President Clinton discusses the Monica Lewinsky scandal in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on January 26, 1998.

Hillary and Bill Clinton arrive at Foundry United Methodist Church on August 16, 1998, in Washington. He became the first sitting president to testify before a grand jury when he testified via satellite about the Lewinsky matter.

Clinton shakes hands during a St. Patrick's Day parade in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Queens, New York, on March 5, 2000.

Clinton waves to the crowd as she arrives on the stage at the Democratic National Convention on August 14, 2000, in Los Angeles.

Clinton campaigns for a Senate seat October 25, 2000, at Grand Central Station in New York.

Hillary Clinton is sworn in as a senator of New York in a re-enactment ceremony with, from left, President Clinton, nephew Tyler, daughter Chelsea, brother Hugh Rodham, mother Dorothy Rodham and Vice President Al Gore on January 3, 2001, in Washington.

Andrew Cuomo, Eliot Spitzer and Clinton celebrate with a crowd of Democratic supporters after their wins in various races November 7, 2006, in New York.

Clinton speaks during a post-primary rally on January 8, 2007, at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, New Hampshire.

The Clintons pay a visit to the 92nd annual Hopkinton State Fair in Contoocook, New Hampshire, on September 2, 2007.

Clinton speaks at a campaign rally September 2, 2007, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She was running for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Clinton addresses a question during a debate with other Democratic presidential candidate at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, on September 26, 2007. Also pictured are U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, left, and former U.S. Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska.

Felipe Bravo, left, and Christian Caraballo are covered with Hillary Clinton stickers in downtown Manchester, New Hampshire, on January 8, 2008.

Clinton campaigns in Council Bluffs, Iowa, with her daughter, Chelsea, on January 1, 2008, two days ahead of the January 3 state caucus.

Clinton waves as she speaks to supporters at the National Building Museum on June 7, 2008, in Washington. After pulling out of the presidential race, Clinton thanked her supporters and urged them to back Barack Obama to be the next president of the United States.

Obama and Clinton talk on the plane on their way to a Unity Rally in Unity, New Hampshire, on June 27, 2008.

Obama watches Clinton address the Democratic National Convention on August 26, 2008. The two endured a long, heated contest for the 2008 nomination.

Sen. Charles Schumer, left, looks toward Secretary of State designate Clinton as Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Sen. John Kerry, center, looks on during nomination hearings January 13, 2009, on Capitol Hill.

Clinton testifies during her confirmation hearing for secretary of state on January 13, 2009, in Washington.

Clinton, as secretary of state, dances with a local choir while visiting the Victoria Mxenge Housing Project in Philippi, a township on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa, on August 8, 2009.

Clinton looks through binoculars toward North Korea during a visit to an observation post July 21, 2010, at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas.

Clinton walks up the steps to her aircraft as she leaves a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on July 23, 2010, in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Hillary and Bill Clinton pose on the day of their daughter's wedding to Marc Mezvinsky on July 31, 2010, in Rhinebeck, New York.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Clinton observe a moment of silence before a NATO meeting November 19, 2010, in Lisbon, Portugal.

Clinton listens as Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu makes a brief statement November 29, 2010, before a bilateral meeting at the State Department in Washington.

Clinton shakes hands with a child during an unannounced walk through Tahrir Square in Cairo on March 16, 2011.

Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Clinton and members of Obama's national security team receive an update on the Osama bin Laden mission May 1, 2011, in the Situation Room of the White House.

Clinton checks her personal digital assistant prior to departing Malta on October 18, 2011.

Clinton dances while in Cartagena, Colombia, on April 15, 2012.

Clinton enjoys a beer at Cafe Havana in Cartagena, Colombia, on April 15, 2012.

Clinton appears with little makeup during an event in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on May 6, 2012. She tells CNN, "I feel so relieved to be at the stage I'm at in my life right now ... Because you know if I want to wear my glasses, I'm wearing my glasses. If I want to wear my hair back I'm pulling my hair back. You know at some point it's just not something that deserves a lot of time and attention."

Clinton speaks as Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai listens during a news conference at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, on July 7, 2012.

Clinton arrives at Ben Gurion International Airport in Israel on July 15, 2012.

Clinton looks on as Obama makes a statement in response to the attack at the U.S. Consulate in Libya on September 12, 2012.

Clinton applauds Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a ceremony where Suu Kyi was presented with the Congressional Gold Medal on September 19, 2012.

Bill Clinton kisses his wife after introducing her at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting on September 24, 2012, in New York City.

Clinton shakes hands with Libyan President Mohamed Magariaf on September 24, 2012, in New York.

Clinton stands during a news conference following meetings at the prime minister's office in Pristina, Kosovo, on October 31, 2012. Clinton said that Kosovo's unilaterally declared independence, fiercely opposed by Serbia, was "not up for discussion."

Clinton chats with Suu Kyi before Obama speaks at the University of Yangon in Yangon, Myanmar, on November 19, 2012.

Obama looks at Clinton before the start of a bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, far right, during the East Asian Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on November 20, 2012.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shakes hands with Clinton at the prime minister's office November 20, 2012, in Jerusalem.

Clinton receives a sports jersey and football helmet from Deputy Secretary Tom Nides, center, after returning to work on January 7, 2013, following a fall where she hit her head and doctors later detected a blood clot. The number 112 represented the number of countries that she had visited as secretary of state.

Clinton and her husband arrive for the inauguration for Obama's second term on January 21, 2013.

Clinton testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill on January 23, 2013. Lawmakers questioned Clinton about the security failures during the Benghazi, Libya, attacks that led to the death of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

From left, first lady Michelle Obama stands with former first ladies Laura Bush, Clinton, Barbara Bush and Rosalynn Carter at the opening ceremony of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas on April 25, 2013.

From left, Clinton, former first lady Laura Bush and former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush listen to speakers during the memorial service for Nelson Mandela in Soweto, South Africa, on December 10.

Clinton ducks after a woman threw a shoe at her while she was delivering remarks at the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries conference in Las Vegas on April 10.

Clinton tours the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York with President Barack Obama, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, first lady Michelle Obama and former President Clinton on May 15.

Hillary Clinton talks with ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer on Thursday, June 5, for her first television interview in conjunction with the release of her new book.

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Editor's note: S.E. Cupp is co-host of which airs at 6:30 p.m. ET weekdays on CNN. She is also the author of "Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media's Attack on Christianity," co-author of "Why You're Wrong About the Right," a columnist at the New York Daily News and a political commentator for Glenn Beck's The Blaze. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) -- Mitt Romney is not running for president, but that hasn't stopped him from offering his advice on how to best beat the likely Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.

And his advice says a lot about why, in part, he went 0-2 in his race for the White House.

"The playbook, I believe," he told David Gregory on NBC's "Meet the Press," "is to look at her record."

"I think you have to consider what's happened around the world," he continued, "During the years that she was secretary of state, and you have to say it's been a monumental bust." Romney then went on to innumerate her many failures.

Of course, he's not wrong. Hillary Clinton's own supporters have had difficulty pinning down her accomplishments at the State Department, and those who aren't paid to puff her up are rightly calling her record abysmal. Even more problematically, her record looks worse and worse with nearly every new development abroad, and in two years' time, there might be little left of it to salvage.

But what Mitt Romney (or his handlers at the very least) never figured out is that there's more to this national election business than a candidate's resume.

The electorate is pretty fickle when it comes to records. In some years there's great attention paid to whether someone has "executive experience," in other years it's the freshness of the candidate that matters. No one, for example, cared what Barack Obama's record was in 2008; he had none to speak of.

So while earnestly taking on Clinton's record is something Republicans can and will do, it won't be enough if the American public cares more about what the next president will do now.

The bigger issue for any candidate is making the case that he or she is right for the current political climate. Who a person was in the past, for better or worse, is often irrelevant.

Romney is a perfect example. In 2012, against the backdrop of Occupy Wall Street and tea party rebellions -- both of which found common enemies in the banks, corporate cronyism and establishment politicians -- a millionaire former governor and the GOP's establishment pick probably wasn't the right candidate for the then-current climate, capable as he was.

The case, then, that Republicans need to make now, is that neither is Clinton.

And it isn't hard. Her own party has moved far to her left, not only since she was last in the White House and later the Senate, but just since she last ran for president.

On economic issues, progressives are clamoring for Elizabeth Warren's anti-bank crackdowns, while Clinton is taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms for speeches -- in which she assures them she isn't anti-bank. Her recent comments about needing all that dough to buy "houses" doesn't help.

On social issues, she may have recently evolved on same-sex marriage, but she hasn't done much to make a convincing (or even coherent) case for why, as we just heard in her testy interview with NPR's Terry Gross. And where she once praised her then-President husband for helping to make abortions "safe, legal and rare," Democrats have since removed that very language from their party platform, finding it a little too conciliatory.

And on civil liberties, millennials -- a generation of 80 million people -- are largely disappointed in an Obama administration that has spied on its allies and its own citizens, carried out an unaccountable drone war, and prosecuted journalists under the Espionage Act. Will Clinton back her old boss on those programs and policies knowing a huge swath of voters are on the other side of the issue?

Furthermore, on the left, the right and in the center voters are moving away from establishment candidates, frustrated with Washington and politics as usual. I can't think of anyone more establishment than Clinton.

Despite her many adoring fans, Clinton is an anachronism today, as Romney was in 2012. She doesn't speak progressive or millennial, and frankly she's out of touch with average voters.

While her record is fair game and deserving of considerable scrutiny, the bigger question is whether she's the right candidate for the time, a lesson Romney learned the hard way.

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