As Hillary Rodham Clinton moves steadily to emerge as the most popular choice in every national poll of likely 2008 Democratic presidential contenders, the New York senator’s presidential campaign policy director Neera Tanden is busy giving a strong  profile to Clinton’s presidential campaign. And she has all reasons to bag credit for doing a good job, if Hillary’s popularity among voters is any indicator to go by.
This second generation Indian has not landed this part out of the blue, she has had an impressive career graph, and Tanden did start young. She began her career back in 1988 as a volunteer for the then Massachusetts Governor Mike Dukakis’ presidential campaign.
Neera Tanden got her undergraduate degree from the University Of California, Los Angeles, and went on to graduate in law from Yale in 1996. A sound academic beginning was bound to take her places, and Tanden did go places - she served as the senior vice-president for Academic Affairs at the Center for American Progress. Prior to joining the Center, she was Legislative Director for Senator Hillary Clinton and she handled both domestic and foreign policy for the Senator. Before that she was the senior vice-president for Domestic Policy for the Center for American Progress.
Tanden also served as the Issues Director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. She worked on educational accountability standards and fiscal equity issues as senior policy advisor to the Chancellor of the New York City Schools, Harold Levy.
Before that she was the deputy campaign manager and policy director for the senate campaign of Hillary Clinton. Neera also served in the White House under President Clinton as the senior policy advisor to the First Lady and associate director in the Domestic Policy Council where she managed children and family issues for the President, including childcare, early learning and after school.
Tanden’s commitment to public policy and political process stems from her own experiences while she was growing up. Tanden acknowledges that what the government does can have a huge impact on people. She relates this to her experience of working for the Clintons, attributing them to be people who are really committed to public service.
Speaking in an interview for Little India, she observes, “I really had experiences where I saw the worth of what government does - welfare, food stamps, housing vouchers. Regardless, other Indian Americans still have experiences regarding immigration, taxes, and the education system, trying to have good schools for their children. I think it's critical that Indian Americans get involved in the political process, no matter what their political views are.”
Tanden recently appeared on a web-chat along with other women members of Hillary’s campaign team, where she talked of her reasons to be supportive of Hillary Clinton’s candidature for the Presidential run. “For me and millions of other women it is hard to balance work and family. But every time I feel pangs of guilt that I am not at home with my children, I think about how important it will be to my daughter when Hillary is president. And what a role model Hillary will be to her,” says Tanden.
Talking of her responsibilities as the Policy Director for Clinton’s Presidential Campaign, she says, “I look after the policy development process, which deals with issues like universal health care, child care and education. Hillary tried to get universal health care passed in the early 90s, and it didn’t pass. But she kept fighting, and as a result, she helped create the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which has provided health insurance to millions of children.
“She is fighting to lower health care costs through the expanded use of health information technology. This is something she can get done in the Senate, but I want to be clear that she’ll pass universal health care as president. I may be more aware of the concerns Americans may have about health care, child care, education, and insuring that Hillary’s proposals respond to these concerns.”      
Tanden keeps an eye on the happenings in Indian politics as well. However, she refuses to comment on it, citing foreign policy issues.