At some point, Private Hillary and Public Hillary will have to meet

In the electric closing moments of last Thursday's Austin debate, Hillary Rodham Clinton offered a glimpse of how she might win Texas and Ohio. If she wants to make history, she must begin to tell the American people her story.

In this primary season of three front-runners, Barack Obama and John McCain present high concept personal narratives — ones that can be summarized in a sentence.

Obama's evocation of his Kenyan father/ Kansan mother and McCain's "my country saved my life" are not simply the touchstone tropes of their campaigns. These narratives also establish the authenticity of the values that underline their plans for change in this country. They both use a life narrative to offer a compelling backstory of why they lead the way they do.

By contrast, Clinton is a master of short stories about the people who have inspired her on the campaign trail and how her programs and initiatives can meet their needs. But, in the weeks ahead, she must tell voters more. In particular, she could describe how her life experiences drive her mission and define her vision of change.

Her narrative must now distinguish the difference between "being experienced" and leveraging the lessons of her experiences to create her signature as a leader. This campaign directive comes from Aldous Huxley, who noted, "Experience is not what happens to you, it is what you do with what happens to you."

I have spent the last decade engaged in research and teaching in the private and public sector that involve leaders describing the people and events that have shaped their work. And I can assure Clinton that a powerful leader's personal narrative is none of the following: a good share, a mea culpa of mistakes, a group hug, a sobfest.

Instead, such stories could offer a window for voters to view the nuances of her motivation, and the genesis of the convictions that define her life and leadership.

To engage an electorate that thinks it knows Clinton, there are several kinds of stories — some told in her book, "Living History," and on her Web site — that demand to be heard on the campaign trail.

She can talk about the leadership imprint of her family. How did she make sense of the example of her father, the son of a factory worker, and her mother, who was sent away from home at age 8 to be raised by a grandmother? And, how did the adventure of being a working mother color her vision for America?

She might describe mentors, teachers and colleagues who offered models of leadership that she has translated into her own terms, or detail the experiences — whether working across Alaska gutting fish when she was 21, or as a children's advocate in Arkansas — that became models for her leadership.

It is also imperative that Clinton describe what Harvard psychologist Robert Kegan calls "the moments where meaning is made" and the events that shaped her commitments. For example, what were her lessons, glimpsed at age 13, when she volunteered on Chicago's South Side to investigate voter fraud? Or in sneaking out of the house to protest at the Democratic National Convention in 1968?

And, most intriguing, can she tell us about the people and events that challenged a Goldwater Girl who grew up in a Republican family to become a passionate Democrat?

Still, a nagging question remains. With a media that stoops to describe her décolletage and elevates ugly quotes about her daughter joining the campaign trail, why should she reveal any more than she has to? Because Clinton, superb at describing how she will lead America, cannot win the Democratic nomination or the election unless she explains the "why" in powerful, first-person statements.

If she can underline her narrative with mirth and meaning, she has an opportunity to close the much reported gap between the public and private Hillary — a gap reinforced on her Web site by the urging of visitors "to tell us about the Hillary you know. "

As the Texas debate ended last week, we could see a positive beginning for the Clinton campaign.

Only when Clinton tells her story, in her own words, will she begin to transform her campaign from a false choice between hope and experience.

By illuminating the experiences that have shaped her leadership, voters can understand how her life and work inform her hopes for America. Yet, the most compelling reason for Clinton's story — to risk a cliché from her Wellesley days — is that the American people have always understood how the personal is political.

Barbara Mackoff, a leadership educator, consultant and author, is on the faculty of The Rocky Mountain Leadership Institute at The University of Colorado School of Public Affairs and co-author of "Leadership as a Habit of Mind." She lives in Seattle.