Hillary was in law school volunteering at New Haven Legal Services to provide free legal advice for the poor and taking on cases of child abuse at Yale-New Haven Hospital. She was awarded a grant to work at Marian Wright Edelman's Washington Research Project, where she was assigned to Senator (and later VP under Jimmy Carter) Walter Mondale's Subcommittee on Migratory Labor, researching problems of, in her words, "how often farmworkers and their children were--and still too often are--deprived of basics like decent housing and sanitation." To her classmates who were "learning how to rehabilitate a corporate client's tarnished image" in those hearings, she writes, "I suggested that the best way to do that would be to improve the treatment of their farmworkers." (Living History, pp. 48-49)

When Obama was 12:

Hillary was a staff attorney for Edelman's newly founded Children's Defense Fund, which especially serves poor and minority children and those with disabilities. As an example of the work she did, Hillary went door to door to identify the source of the troubling discrepancy between numbers of school-age children and of school enrollments: "Knocking on doors was revelatory and heartbreaking. I found children who weren't in school because of physical disabilities like blindness and deafness. I also found school-age siblings at home, baby-sitting their younger brothers and sisters while their parents worked. . . . We submitted the results of our survey to Congress. Two years later, at the urging of CDF and other strong advocates, Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, mandating that children with physical, emotional and learning disabilities be educated in the public school system." (Living History, p. 64)

When Obama was 16:

Hillary co-founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, a state-level alliance with the Children's Defense Fund. President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the board of directors of the Legal Services Corporation--a nonprofit federal program created to fund legal assistance for the poor--where she served with Mickey Kantor, a former legal services lawyer who had represented migrant workers in Florida. She also became the first woman to serve as chair of that board, and she successfully battled against President Ronald Reagan's attempts to reduce the funding and change the nature of the organization. Funding for the LSC during her tenure was expanded from $90 million to $300 million.

When Obama became old enough to vote:

Hillary was named the first female partner at Rose Law Firm and served as Bill's chair of the Rural Health Advisory Committee in Arkansas, where she successfully obtained federal funds to expand medical facilities in Arkansas' poorest areas without affecting doctors' fees. She also chaired the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee, by which a statewide system of teacher testing was installed to improve public education in the state.

When Obama was still in law school:

Hillary was listed as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America, and served on the board of the Arkansas Children's Hospital Legal Services, whose mission is to provide high quality, cost-effective, fully accessible services for Arkansas' most precious resource--our children--without regard to race, religion or inability to pay. She also served as chair of the board of the Children's Defense Fund which of course focuses on poor and disadvantaged children.

When Obama was first starting out in the IL state legislature:

Hillary fought and helped to establish the Adoption and Safe Families Act and the State Children's Health Insurance Program--a federal program that provides state support for children whose parents were unable to provide them with health coverage. It covered previously uninsured children in families with incomes that are modest but too high to qualify for Medicaid, and was the largest expansion of health insurance coverage for children in the U.S. since Medicaid began in the 1960s.

In sum:

Between Hillary and Obama, there's no comparison as to whose life demonstrates more commitment to the principles Edwards championed.