First Lady Hillary Clinton Eyeing Presidency in 2008

Hillary Rodham Clinton began campaigning in earnest for the 2008 Democratic nomination for the presidential election on Jan. 20, 2007, on the heels of her announcement of the formation of a presidential exploratory committee on Jan. 20, 2007 (which was done via her Web site).

"I'm in," she said on her Internet site. "And I'm in to win."

Talk of Clinton running for the U.S. presidency began as far back as 2002, when the possibility was mentioned in an article in The New York Times. Should she win the nomination, Clinton will be the first woman in history to be nominated by a major party to run for president of the United States.

Clinton's campaign team is managed by Patti Solis-Doyle (the first female Hispanic to run a presidential campaign). Advertising efforts are being headed up by Mike Henry, who was the campaign manager for Tim Kaine when he became governor of Virginia in 2005; and veteran New York politico Howard Wolfson is Clinton's campaign spokesman. The chief operating officer of the campaign is Evelyn Lieberman, who was on Clinton's staff when she was first lady of the United States and also served as deputy White House chief of staff.

In early 2007, Clinton was leading the field of candidates competing for the Democratic nomination according to opinion polls. In the spring of 2007, polls showed Clinton had been overtaken by Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois; but by May 7, 2007, Clinton had taken back the lead.

In a May 2005 Gallup poll, 54 percent of respondents considered Clinton a liberal. Thirty percent considered her a moderate; nine percent a conservative. The National Journal's 2004 study rated Clinton as a 30 on the political spectrum on a scale of 1 to 100 ( 1 being the most liberal, 100 the most conservative). This figure was arrived at using a study of Clinton's role call votes as a member of the U.S. Senate. An analysis conducted by three political scientists ranked Clinton as the sixth- to eighth- most liberal U.S. senator.

Her life in politics

Clinton, a lawyer by trade, is the currently New York's junior U.S. senator. The wife of former U.S. President William Jefferson Clinton, she was first lady of the United States from 1993-2001. Her husband is also a former Arkansas governor, and she was first lady of that state from 1983-92.

Hillary Clinton became first lady of the United States when her husband took office in January 1993. No first lady before her had ever earned a post-graduate college degree or had a professional career. She also took an office in the West Wing of the White House (first ladies usually stayed in the East Wing).

In the first year of his presidency, Bill Clinton named his wife to head and chair the Task Force on National Health Care Reform. In what would come to be known as the Clinton Health Care Plan, a complicated proposal was developed in which employers would be required to provide health coverage for their employees through individual health maintenance organizations. The plan had many opponents (who dubbed the plan "Hillarycare"), and didn't make it to the floor in the House or the Senate. The proposal died in September of 1994.

Hillary Clinton's major role in the White House was widely criticized. However, it should have come as no surprise, as Bill Clinton promised "two presidents for the price of one" when he spoke during his campaign about how active his wife would be if he were elected. The Clintons were often referred to as "co-presidents" or "Billary."

The Clintons' marriage came under the microscope again in 1998, when it came to light that the president had an affair with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern. Bill Clinton denied the affair, but was impeached as a result of the scandal. Eventually, irrefutable proof of the affair was revealed, and Hillary Clinton said she had been misled by her husband.

Even so, the Clintons remained together, and Hillary insisted the marriage was on solid footing. In later years, both Clintons penned autobiographies and described the Lewinsky scandal years as a stressful and painful time in their marriage.

Clinton was an avid supporter of women's rights and children's welfare at home and abroad during her tenure as first lady of the United States. Topics of White House conference she organized and hosted included children's health, school violence and early childhood development. She was a vocal proponent of immunization for children, mammograms for older women and increased funding for research into prostate cancer and child asthma. She was the driving force behind the Children's Health Insurance Program, which was a federal initiative launched in 1997 to provide state funded health insurance for children whose parents could not provide it for them.

Clinton investigated reports of an illness that was affecting veterans of the Gulf War, a condition that came to be known as Gulf War syndrome. With Attorney General Janet Reno, Clinton helped create the Office on Violence Against Women, an offshoot of the Department of Justice. She made speeches railing against the abuse of women in China and the treatment of women in Afghanistan by Islamist fundamentalist group the Taliban. She assisted in the launch of Vital Voices, a U.S.-sponsored, international program focused on the promotion of the involvement of women in the politics of their homelands.

Clinton was the founder of Save America's Treasures, a national program aimed at the preservation and restoration of historic items (and that matched federal dollars with private donations to help do it). Because of her efforts, such items as the flag that was the muse for Francis Scott Key's "The Star Spangled Banner" is still around today.

Of all her work, it was the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which she launched in 1997 and continued to develop and cultivate, that Clinton believes to be her greatest accomplishment as first lady.

When she was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2001, it was a first in two ways: There had never been a first lady elected to public office, and she was also the first woman senator ever elected in New York. She won her re-election bid in 2006.

At the urging of several high-profile democratic figures, Clinton ran for the New York seat on the U.S. Senate in 2000 following the retirement of longtime Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. After she made the decision to run, the Clinton family bought a home in Chappaqua, N.Y.

It was widely speculated that Clinton's Republican opponent would be NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, but he dropped out of the race after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Clinton's new Republican rival was U.S. House of Representatives member Rick Lazio, who represented New York's 2^nd congressional district.

Clinton faced criticism from her opponents because she had never lived in New York or been directly involved in the city's politics before her run for Senate. To combat this, Clinton proceeded to go on a "listening tour," where she stopped in every county in the state and attended small group gatherings.

Clinton defeated Lazio on Nov. 7, 2000, garnering 55 percent of the vote to Lazio's 43 percent. She was sworn into office the following January.

In the Senate, Clinton sits on five committees with nine subcommittee assignments in all: the Committee on Armed Services, with three subcommittee assignments on Airland, on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, and on Readiness and Management Support; the Committee on Environment and Public Works, with three subcommittee assignments on Clean Air, Wetlands, Private Property, and Nuclear Safety, on Fisheries, Wildlife, and Water, and on Superfund, Waste Control, and Risk Assessment; the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, with two subcommittee assignments on Aging and on Children and Families; and the Special Committee on Aging.

After the terrorist attacks on Washington, D.C. and New York on Sept. 11, 2001, Clinton worked to get funding for recovery efforts and security improvements in New York. Along with the state's senior senator Charles Schumer, she was instrumental in getting $21.4 billion earmarked for the rebuilding and redevelopment of the World Trade Center site (commonly referred to as Ground Zero).

In her role with the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Clinton was a vocal proponent of military action in Afghanistan. She said along with being an opportunity to fight terrorism, the action was also a chance to improve the lives of Afghan women who were being abused under the Taliban. She voted in favor of the Iraq Resolution, which gave President George W. Bush authority to use military force against Iraq after diplomatic efforts had failed. Clinton has made trips to Iraq and Afghanistan to visit the American troops stationed there.

But she has not agreed with all Bush's decisions since the war in Iraq began. In late 2005, she said she didn't feel that immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq would be the right thing to do, but also said Bush's vow to keep troops overseas "until the job is done" wasn't the answer, either. Clinton said in a 2005 interview with The Buffalo News that Bush's idea gave Iraqis "an open invitation not to take care of themselves."

A champion for veterans, Clinton has supported keeping and bettering health benefits for those who have served in the armed forces. She has lobbied to keep military bases open.

She voted against the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Reconciliation Act of 2003, both introduced by President Bush, calling them fiscally irresponsible measures.

In 2005, Clinton joined Sens. Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh to introduce the Family Entertainment Protection Act, which focuses on keeping inappropriate content out of video games that are purchased and played by children. Clinton has twice voted against a federal amendment that would ban gay marriage (in 2004 and 2006). In 2006, she voted against the Flag Desecration Amendment.

Clinton announced in 2004 her plans to run for re-election to the U.S. Senate. Her opponent, who she easily bested for the Democratic nomination, was Jonathan Tasini (an anti-war activist). In the general election, she faced former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer and a smattering of third-party candidates. In the end, Clinton carried all but four of New York's 67 counties. She took 67 percent of the total vote; Spencer took 31 percent.

In February 2007, Clinton supported a non-binding Senate resolution against an Iraq War troop surge (the resolution did not gain cloture). A month later, she voted for a war spending bill that required the withdrawal of troops from Iraq by a certain deadline; that bill passed along party lines almost completely.

In March 2007, Clinton called for the resignation of Attorney Gen. Alberto Gonzales, launching an Internet campaign to gather petition signatures to make sure it happened.

Early life, education

Clinton was born Hillary Diane Rodham on Oct. 26, 1947, in Chicago. She was the daughter and oldest child of Hugh Ellsworth and Dorothy Emma Howell Rodham, and was raised in a Methodist household in Park Ridge, Ill. Her father, the son of English immigrants, ran a small textile business, while her mother was a homemaker. Clinton has two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony.

Clinton attended Maine East High School, and was a member of the student council, debate team and National Honor Society. The Rodhams were a conservative family, and in 1964, while still in high school, Clinton volunteered during the U.S. presidential election for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater.

After high school graduation, Clinton began studies at Wellesley College in 1965, where she grew more interested in politics. She served as the president of the college's chapter of the College Republicans. She met Martin Luther King Jr. in 1962, and has said in interviews that she was profoundly affected by his death. In the mid 1960s, Clinton joined the Democratic Party.

Clinton graduated from Wellesley in 1969, earning a degree in political science and achieving departmental honors. She was the first student in the school's history to come back and deliver a commencement address (published reports stated her speech earned her a seven-minute standing ovation).

After college, Clinton enrolled at Yale Law School. While there, she sat on the Board of Editors of the Yale Review of Law and Social Action. In her sophomore year of law school, she was a volunteer at the Yale Child Study Center. She took child abuse cases at Yale-New Haven Hospital and gave free legal advice to the poor while working with the city's legal services. Through a special grant, she worked at the Children's Defense Fund in Cambridge, Mass.

She and fellow Yale Law student Bill Clinton began dating in the spring of 1971, and that summer she worked with Sen. Walter Mondale in Washington on his subcommittee on migrant workers. In the summer of 1972, Clinton went to the western United States, where she campaigned for George McGovern, a 1972 presidential candidate.

In 1973, Clinton graduated from Yale Law School. She spent the year after doing post-graduate studies on children and medicine at the Yale Child Study Center.

After college

While doing her post-graduate study, Clinton served as staff attorney for the Children's Defense Fund and as a consultant to the Carnegie Council on Children, and was also a member of the impeachment inquiry staff advising the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate scandal.

Later, she joined the faculty of the University of Arkansas' Fayetteville School of law (where she was one of two female staff members and where her then fiancé Bill Clinton was teaching).

The Clintons were married in Fayetteville on Oct. 11, 1975. They stayed there for a short time, eventually moving to Little Rock, Arkansas, where Bill ran for office for the first time as a candidate for Congress. Hillary Clinton took a job at the Rose Law Firm in 1976. She specialized in intellectual property cases and did pro bono work in child advocacy. She was appointed in 1978 to the board of the Legal Services Corp. by President Jimmy Carter. Clinton became the first lady of Arkansas in 1978 when her husband was elected governor, and she was made a full partner in the Rose Law Firm (the first woman to have had the distinction) the following year.

Hillary have birth to her and Bill's daughter, Chelsea, on Feb. 27, 1980 (she would be the couple's only child). Bill lost his bid for re-election that fall, but returned to the office of governor two years later. It was in 1982 that Hillary, who had still been using her maiden name, began calling herself Hillary Clinton.

During the 12 years she was first lady of Arkansas, Clinton pursued and completed many projects. As the chairperson of the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee, she improved the testing standards of new teachers. She created the Arkansas' Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youth in her role as chairperson of the Rural Health Advisory Committee. She was honored as Arkansas' Woman of the Year in 1983 and the state's Mother of the Year in 1984.

All the time she was first lady of Arkansas, Clinton was still working at the Rose Law Firm. Twice the National Law Journal cited her as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America (in 1988 and 1991). She served on the boards of two organizations, the Arkansas Children's Hospital Legal Services and the Children's Defense Fund, and also co-founded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. She was on the boards of TCBY, Wal-Mart and Lafarge between 1985 and 1992.

She had been a major player in Arkansas government and politics for many years, but it was a scandal that catapult Hillary Clinton into the national spotlight. In 1992, after her husband had won the Democratic nomination for the presidential election, a tabloid printed a story that said Bill Clinton had carried on an extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers, a lounge singer from Arkansas. To address the claims of the tabloid, the Clintons made an appearance together in which Bill denied the affair (he did say he had caused Hillary pain, and several years later, he admitted to the affair with Flowers).

Writings

While she was first lady of the United States, Clinton penned a weekly newspaper column, "Talking it Over." The column was about her experiences and those of the families, women and children she met during her world travels.

Clinton's first book, "It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us" was released in 1996. The tome was a New York Times best seller. She followed up with "Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids' Letters to Pets" in 1998 and "An Invitation to the White House: At Home With History" in 2000.

The last book authored by Clinton was her autobiography, "Living History." It was released in 2003.