Editors’ note: This exclusive profile of Ann Coulter first appeared in the January 2009 issue of Townhall Magazine. Click here to subscribe and receive your free copy Mark Levin’s new book, “Liberty & Tyranny.”

When Ann Coulter was a little girl she wanted to be “head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with a Republican president.” Or a “fairy princess.”

Instead, Coulter became the Rush Limbaugh of the printed word. She is author of six (soon to be seven) New York Times best sellers, a nationally syndicated columnist and one of the most popular speakers among young and old alike. Coulter has become the most successful conservative writer working today, with more than 3 million books sold. No 21st century conservative writer—male or female—comes even close. Like Limbaugh, her audience keeps growing. When a new book is released, liberals and delicate self-proclaimed conservatives say that “this time she’s gone too far” and predict the end of her career. The book then sells better than her last. She drives the Left into a sputtering rage, and she loves it.

I first met Coulter at the 2000 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C. Following the success of her first book, “High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton,” Coulter was given CPAC’s Conservative Journalist of the Year Award. That year she also spoke at Young America’s Foundation’s journalism lunch. She has remained a favorite of young conservatives for her tenacity, wit and accessibility. Like many of them, she became active in the conservative movement during her college years.

During a time when famous people brag about their difficult childhood and airing family secrets become a badge of honor, Coulter doesn’t apologize for having a normal childhood in New Canaan, Conn. She says her parents, John and Nell, were “immeasurably important” in shaping her beliefs and career choices. Her father passed away in January 2008, but her mother remains active and still enjoys reading about her famous daughter.

After years of boisterous political discussions with her parents and brothers around the dinner table, Coulter would blossom in the liberal stronghold of higher education. As one of Coulter’s close friends told Time magazine, “For a younger girl with two older brothers, you’ve got to learn to mix it up, stand up for yourself. Older brothers are not going to cut you any slack. If you say something stupid, you figure, next time, I’m going to be better at it.”

Coulter left Connecticut to attend Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. She said, “During my first few years of college, I was a community organizer of sorts—I went to sorority and fraternity parties, met lots of new friends, played lacrosse, went to church, chatted in the library and danced at Ujama House parties.”

It wasn’t long before she started making waves on campus. Cornell, which continues to be a breeding ground (or cemetery) for liberal thought, was the perfect environment for Coulter: “My junior year I became more of a think-tank- type political activist upon noticing I was at a world class university and hadn’t really been taking advantage of it.”

Coulter co-founded the conservative Cornell Review, which still exists today. She then went on to the University of Michigan School of Law. “I founded the University of Michigan chapter of this kooky, radical fringe group that believed in individual rights, the rule of law, and the Constitution of the United States of America, known as ‘the Federalist Society.’”

One of the highlights of her time in law school was bringing in Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia through the Federalist Society. Much like she does when faced with a hostile crowd or commentator, Coulter thrived in the liberal campus atmosphere. “To quote Bill Ayers,” she told me, “I don’t regret one minute of my student activism. In fact, I wish we had done more.”

A few years ago, I met the niece of Ambassador Clare Boothe Luce, who also attended Cornell around the same time as Coulter. Though they didn’t know one another, Luce’s niece was the photographer for the Cornell Review and other campus publications. Like Coulter, Ambassador Luce reached the height of success within the conservative movement. She was a playwright, managing editor of Vanity Fair, staunch anti-Communist, ambassador to Italy and congresswoman from Coulter’s hometown district. While at the University of Michigan School of Law, Coulter became a fan of Ambassador Luce and her smart-aleck writing.

One summer afternoon in 2000, Coulter and I spent hours in the Manuscript Room of the Library of Congress, combing through some of the more than 800 boxes of personal and professional papers that had belonged to Ambassador Luce. Coulter was keen on finding a biting line she remembered then-Congresswoman Luce saying on the House fl oor to a liberal congressman. She found the line and quoted it in her weekly column a few months later.

Coulter loves finding a tidbit of information or unknown fact. Though it goes unnoticed by right- and left-wing commentators alike, many of Coulter’s “outrageous” statements tend to become conventional thinking. “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” impeached a President. “Slander” busted the elite media. “Treason” vindicated Sen. Joe McCarthy and put Democrats’ patriotism into the public square. “Godless” shed light on the religious cult of liberalism. Her newest book, “Guilty,” goes a step further to expose the phony “victims” propped up by the Left.

On March 23, 1999, Coulter gave her first college speech for Young America’s Foundation (YAF) at Brandeis University. She has since spoken on more than 60 college campuses and is YAF’s most popular speaker. The foundation also says that their Ann Coulter poster is the most popular in their poster series. It graces the walls of campus dorms, military barracks across the world, and my office.

Editors’ note: This exclusive profile of Ann Coulter first appeared in the January 2009 issue of Townhall Magazine. Click here to subscribe and receive your free copy Mark Levin’s new book, “Liberty & Tyranny.”