Hillary Rodham Clinton

Hillary Rodham Clinton was the initial first lady (president's wife), current or former, to be elected to a government office. She was elected and took office as a U.S. senator from New York while still first lady. She achieved another historical first when she became the first woman to be a serious contender for the office of U.S. president.

Hillary Diane Rodham was born to a conservative, upper-class family on October 26, 1947. She and her two brothers were raised in a suburb just outside Chicago, Illinois , with traditional, mid-American values that emphasized family, church, education, and social obligations.

After graduating from public high school in 1965, Rodham attended the prestigious Wellesley College, where she majored in political science and minored in philosophy. Rodham was elected president of the student government in her senior year of college and graduated with highest honors in 1969. She was accepted to the Yale School of Law and graduated in 1973.

Real life experience

While at Yale, Rodham realized that her primary social concerns were related to children, particularly those with social and cultural disadvantages. She participated in several organizations that assisted children and their families. An extra year of study at Yale gave her time to hone her expertise in child law.

After graduation, Rodham moved to Washington, D.C. , and worked as a staff attorney for the Children's Defense Fund. She excelled at her job. In late 1974, Rodham accepted a teaching position at the University of Arkansas Law School. While there, she married future U.S. president Bill Clinton (1946–; served 1993–2001), a former classmate from Yale.

After her husband was elected attorney general of Arkansas in 1976, the couple moved to Little Rock, where Hillary Clinton joined the reputable Rose Law Firm. In January 1978, her husband was elected governor, and she became Arkansas's first lady. That same year, she became the first woman to achieve partner status at the Rose Law Firm. In February 1980, the Clintons celebrated the birth of their only child, Chelsea Victoria.

From Arkansas to the White House

Clinton was the first lady of Arkansas for nearly eleven years. During that time, she continued to participate in public service and policy reforms at the state level, focusing her efforts on education. In 1985, she established the Home Instruction Program for Pre-School Youngsters, which brought tutorials and instruction to impoverished homes that included four- and five-year-olds. It was a highly successful program, with more than twenty-four hundred mothers participating.

Clinton and her husband were awarded the National Humanitarian Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews in 1987, and she served tirelessly on the boards of directors of several national corporations, including Wal-Mart. In 1988 and 1991, the National Law Journal hailed her as one of the “One Hundred Most Influential Lawyers in America.”

Clinton became the nation's first lady when her husband won the 1992 presidential election. In that position, she continued advocating for many of the programs and issues she had long supported. She provided much-needed leadership, particularly as head of the Task Force on National Health Care. Her responsibilities included preparing legislation, lobbying before Congress, and developing a comprehensive health-care reform package. Although the reform failed to pass, the opportunity gave Clinton valuable experience.

Clinton provided vital advice and perspective to her husband throughout his two-term presidency. She stood by her husband in 1998 as he was accused of having an extramarital affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky (1973–). The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to impeach the president for matters related to the sex scandal. Although the president eventually admitted to the affair, the Senate voted to acquit him in 1999, and he completed his term in office. Hillary Clinton herself was the subject of an investigation in the mid-1990s. In the late 1970s, she and her husband had lost money in a business called Whitewater Development Corporation. Concern arose when it came to light that the legal firm Clinton worked for had provided services to the bank whose owners were the Clintons’ business venture partners. Several independent counsels investigated the situation and found that there was insufficient evidence to prove that either Clinton had engaged in criminal wrongdoing.

After the White House

In 2000, before her husband's second presidential term was over, the couple purchased a home in New York, establishing residency in the state. In May, Clinton received the state convention's appointment as Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, and Clinton beat her opponent, U.S. representative Rick Lazio (1958–), who stepped into the race when New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani (1944–) dropped out after being diagnosed with cancer. On November 7, 2000, Clinton became the only active first lady to win an elected office.

As 2002 came to a close, many people believed Clinton would run in the next presidential election (2004). The senator denied any such intention and instead won reelection to the U.S. Senate in 2006. By early 2007, however, she was strategizing her run for the White House and publicly announced her plan. Early opponents included former U.S. senator John Edwards (1953–) of North Carolina , New Mexico governor Bill Richardson (1947–), and U.S. senator Barack Obama (1961–) of Illinois. Many Democrats had hoped former vice president and 2000 Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore (1948–) would run in the 2008 election. Citizens in grassroots campaigns in New Hampshire , California , and New York tried to convince him to enter the race, but he declined to run. Eventually, the contest for the nomination was whittled down to Clinton and Obama.

The polls in 2007 showed Clinton as the front-runner for the nomination, but by 2008 it was clear that Obama was not going to go down without a fight. In the Iowa caucuses, Clinton placed third, behind Obama and Edwards (who had been the Democratic Party ‘s vice presidential nominee in 2004). But five days later, Clinton took New Hampshire.

On February 5—a day known as Super Tuesday, when about half of the states hold their primaries and caucuses—votes and delegates were almost equally split between Clinton and Obama. Two states, Michigan and Florida , had broken Democratic Party rules by staging early primaries and therefore lost their delegates (later negotiations resulted in the party giving these delegates half-votes). This especially hurt Clinton because she had won both primaries, though neither candidate campaigned in the two states and Obama even chose to leave his name off the Michigan ballot. In order to secure the Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton or Obama needed to secure 2,118 delegates.

On June 3, the final primaries were held in Montana and South Dakota . By the end of the day, Obama had finally secured enough votes to go over the required 2,118 tally. Four days later, Clinton suspended her campaign and asked supporters to use “our energy, our passion, our strength” to elect Obama. “I endorse and throw my full support behind him,” she said. Obama would face the Republican nominee, U.S. senator John McCain (1936–) of Arizona , in the November election.

Clinton on the issues

Clinton's stance on most of the major issues of the 2008 presidential race was in keeping with Democratic Party lines. She supported abortion rights and was in favor of educational and health care reform. Where she differed from Obama most significantly was in her voting record on the Iraq Invasion (2003–). Clinton initially voted to use military force in Iraq but then changed her mind after the war began. Obama consistently voted against waging war on Iraq. Political experts considered this a key foreign policy issue in the primary elections.