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 healthcare 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.