Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton (born October 26, 1947) is the junior United States Senator from New York, and was a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 presidential election. She is married to Bill Clinton?the 42nd President of the United States?and was the First Lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001.

A native of Illinois, Hillary Rodham first attracted national attention in 1969 for her remarks as the first student to deliver the commencement address at Wellesley College. She embarked on a career in law after graduating from Yale Law School in 1973. Following a stint as a Congressional legal counsel, she moved to Arkansas in 1974, and married Bill Clinton in 1975. She was later named the first female partner at Rose Law Firm in 1979, and was twice listed as one of the one hundred most influential lawyers in America. She was the First Lady of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992 and was active in a number of organizations concerned with child welfare, as well as sitting on the boards of Wal-Mart and several other corporations.

As First Lady of the United States, her major initiative, the Clinton health care plan, failed to gain approval from the U.S. Congress in 1994. In 1997 and 1999, Clinton played a role in advocating for the establishment of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, the Adoption and Safe Families Act, and the Foster Care Independence Act. She became the only First Lady to be subpoenaed, testifying before a federal grand jury as a consequence of the Whitewater controversy in 1996. She was never charged with any wrongdoing in this or any of the several other investigations during her husband's administration. The state of her marriage to Bill Clinton was the subject of considerable public discussion following the Lewinsky scandal in 1998.

After moving to New York, Clinton was elected as senator for New York State in 2000. That election marked the first time an American First Lady had run for public office; Clinton is also the first female senator to represent New York. In the Senate, she initially supported the George W. Bush administration on some foreign policy issues, which included voting for the Iraq War Resolution. She has subsequently opposed the administration on its conduct of the war in Iraq, and has opposed it on most domestic issues. She was reelected by a wide margin in 2006. In the 2008 presidential nomination race, Clinton won more primaries and delegates than any other female candidate in American history, but after a long campaign, Senator Barack Obama became the party's presumptive nominee in June 2008 and Clinton endorsed him.

Early life and education

Early life

Hillary^[1] Diane Rodham was born at Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, Illinois.^[2][3] She was raised in a United Methodist family,^[4] first in Chicago, and then, from the age of three, in suburban Park Ridge, Illinois.^[5] Her father, Hugh Ellsworth Rodham, was a child of Welsh and English immigrants;^[6] he managed a successful small business in the textile industry.^[7] Her mother, Dorothy Emma Howell, of English, Scottish, French, French Canadian, and Welsh descent,^[6] was a homemaker.^[5] She has two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony.

As a child, Hillary Rodham was a teacher's favorite at her public schools in Park Ridge.^[8][9] She participated in swimming, baseball and other sports, and earned many awards as a Brownie and Girl Scout.^[8][9] She attended Maine East High School, where she participated in student council, the school newspaper, and was selected for National Honor Society.^[10][2] For her senior year she was redistricted to Maine South High School, where she was a National Merit Finalist and graduated in 1965.^[10] Her mother wanted her to have an independent, professional career,^[11] while her father, otherwise a traditionalist, held the modern notion that his daughter's abilities and opportunities should not be limited by gender.^[12]

Raised in a politically conservative household,^[11] at age thirteen Rodham helped canvass South Side Chicago following the very close 1960 U.S. presidential election, where she found evidence of electoral fraud against Republican candidate Richard Nixon.^[13] She then volunteered to campaign for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater in the U.S. presidential election of 1964.^[14] Rodham's early political development was shaped most by her high school history teacher (like her father, a fervent anti-communist), who introduced her to Goldwater's classic The Conscience of a Conservative,^[15] and by her Methodist youth minister (like her mother, concerned with issues of social justice), with whom she saw and met civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. in Chicago in 1962.^[16]

College

In 1965, Rodham enrolled at Wellesley College, where she majored in political science.^[17] During her freshman year, she served as president of the Wellesley Young Republicans;^[18][19] with this Rockefeller Republican-oriented group,^[20] she supported the elections of John Lindsay and Edward Brooke.^[21] She later stepped down from this position, as her views changed regarding the American Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War.^[18] In a letter to her youth minister at this time, she described herself as "a mind conservative and a heart liberal."^[22] In contrast to the 1960s current that believed in radical actions against the political system, she sought to work for change within it.^[23] In her junior year, Rodham became a supporter of the anti-war presidential nomination campaign of Democrat Eugene McCarthy.^[24] Following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Rodham organized a two-day student strike and worked with Wellesley's black students to recruit more black students and faculty.^[24] In early 1968, she was elected president of the Wellesley College Government Association and served through early 1969;^[23][25] she was instrumental in keeping Wellesley from being embroiled in the student disruptions common to other colleges.^[23] A number of her fellow students thought she might some day become the first woman President of the United States.^[23] So she could better understand her changing political views, Professor Alan Schechter assigned Rodham to intern at the House Republican Conference, and she attended the "Wellesley in Washington" summer program.^[24] Rodham was invited by moderate New York Republican Representative Charles Goodell to help Governor Nelson Rockefeller?s late-entry campaign for the Republican nomination.^[24] Rodham attended the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami. However, she was upset by how Richard Nixon's campaign portrayed Rockefeller and by what she perceived as the convention's "veiled" racist messages, and left the Republican Party for good.^[24]

Returning to Wellesley for her final year, Rodham wrote her senior thesis about the tactics of radical community organizer Saul Alinsky under Professor Schechter (which, years later while she was First Lady, was suppressed at White House request and became the subject of some speculation).^[26] In 1969, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts,^[27] with departmental honors in political science.^[26] Following pressure from some fellow students,^[28] she became the first student in Wellesley College history to deliver their commencement address.^[25] Her speech received a standing ovation lasting seven minutes.^[23][29][30] She was featured in an article published in Life magazine,^[31] due to the response to a part of her speech that criticized Senator Edward Brooke, who had spoken before her at the commencement.^[32] She also appeared on Irv Kupcinet's nationally syndicated television talk show as well as in Illinois and New England newspapers.^[33] That summer, she worked her way across Alaska, washing dishes in Mount McKinley National Park and sliming salmon in a fish processing cannery in Valdez (which fired her and shut down overnight when she complained about unhealthy conditions).^[34]

Law school

Rodham then entered Yale Law School, where she served on the editorial board of the Yale Review of Law and Social Action.^[35] During her second year, she worked at the Yale Child Study Center,^[36] learning about new research on early childhood brain development and working as a research assistant on the seminal work, Beyond the Best Interests of the Child (1973).^[37][38] She also took on cases of child abuse at Yale-New Haven Hospital,^[37] and volunteered at New Haven Legal Services to provide free legal advice for the poor.^[36] In the summer of 1970, she was awarded a grant to work at Marian Wright Edelman's Washington Research Project, where she was assigned to Senator Walter Mondale's Subcommittee on Migratory Labor. There she researched migrant workers' problems in housing, sanitation, health and education.^[39] Edelman later became a significant mentor.^[40]

In the late spring of 1971, she began dating Bill Clinton, also a law student at Yale. That summer, she interned at the Oakland, California, law firm of Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein.^[41] The firm was well-known for its support of constitutional rights, civil liberties, and radical causes (two of its four partners were current or former Communist Party members);^[41] Rodham worked on child custody and other cases.^[42] Clinton canceled his original summer plans, in order to live with her in California;^[43] the couple continued living together in New Haven when they returned to law school.^[42] The following summer, Rodham and Clinton campaigned in Texas for unsuccessful 1972 Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern.^[44] She received a Juris Doctor degree from Yale in 1973,^[27] having stayed on an extra year in order to be with Clinton.^[45] Clinton first proposed marriage to her following graduation, but she declined.^[45] She began a year of post-graduate study on children and medicine at the Yale Child Study Center.^[46] Her first scholarly article, "Children Under the Law", was published in the Harvard Educational Review in late 1973.^[47] Discussing the new children's rights movement, it stated that "child citizens" were "powerless individuals"^[48] and argued that children should not be considered equally incompetent from birth to attaining legal age, but that rather courts should presume competence except when there is evidence otherwise, on a case-by-case basis.^[49] The article became frequently cited in the field.^[50]

Marriage and family, law career and First Lady of Arkansas

From the East Coast to Arkansas

During her post-graduate study, Rodham served as staff attorney for Edelman's newly founded Children's Defense Fund in Cambridge, Massachusetts,^[51] and as a consultant to the Carnegie Council on Children.^[52] During 1974 she was a member of the impeachment inquiry staff in Washington, D.C., advising the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate scandal.^[53] Under the guidance of Chief Counsel John Doar and senior member Bernard Nussbaum,^[37] Rodham helped research procedures of impeachment and the historical grounds and standards for impeachment.^[54] The committee's work culminated in the resignation of President Richard Nixon in August 1974.^[54]

By then, Rodham was viewed as someone with a bright political future; Democratic political organizer and consultant Betsey Wright had moved from Texas to Washington the previous year to help guide her career;^[55] Wright thought Rodham had the potential to become a future senator or president.^[56] Meanwhile, Clinton had repeatedly asked her to marry him, and she had continued to demur.^[57] However, after failing the District of Columbia bar exam^[58] and passing the Arkansas exam, Rodham came to a key decision. As she later wrote, "I chose to follow my heart instead of my head".^[59] She thus followed Bill Clinton to Arkansas, rather than staying in Washington where career prospects were brighter. Clinton was at the time teaching law and running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in his home state. In August 1974, she moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, and became one of only two female faculty members in the School of Law at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville,^[60] where Bill Clinton also taught. She still harbored doubts about marriage, concerned that her separate identity would be lost and that her accomplishments would be viewed in the light of someone else's.^[61]

Early Arkansas years

Hillary Rodham and Bill Clinton bought a house in Fayetteville in the summer of 1975, and Hillary finally agreed to marriage.^[62] Their wedding took place on October 11, 1975, in a Methodist ceremony in their living room.^[63] She kept the name Hillary Rodham, later writing that she had done so to keep their professional lives separate and avoid seeming conflicts of interest, although her decision upset both their mothers.^[64] Bill Clinton had lost the Congressional race in 1974, but in November 1976 was elected Arkansas Attorney General, and so the couple moved to the state capital of Little Rock.^[65] There, in February 1977, Rodham joined the venerable Rose Law Firm, a bastion of Arkansan political and economic influence.^[66] She specialized in patent infringement and intellectual property law,^[35] while also working pro bono in child advocacy;^[67] she rarely performed litigation work in court.^[68]

Rodham maintained her interest in children's law and family policy, publishing the scholarly articles "Children's Policies: Abandonment and Neglect" in 1977^[69] and "Children's Rights: A Legal Perspective" in 1979.^[70] The latter continued her argument that children's legal competence depended upon their age and other circumstances, and that serious medical rights cases, judicial intervention was sometimes warranted.^[49] An American Bar Association chair later said, "Her articles were important, not because they were radically new but because they helped formulate something that had been inchoate."^[49] Historian Garry Wills would later describe her as "one of the more important scholar-activists of the last two decades",^[71] while conservatives said her theories would usurp traditional parental authority,^[72] allow children to file frivolous lawsuits against their parents,^[49] and argued that her work was legal "crit" theory run amok.^[73]

Also in 1977, Rodham co-founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, a state-level alliance with the Children's Defense Fund.^[35][74] And later that same year, President Jimmy Carter (for whom Rodham had done 1976 campaign coordination work in Indiana^[75]) appointed her to the board of directors of the Legal Services Corporation,^[76] and she served in that capacity from 1978 until the end of 1981.^[77] From mid-1978 to mid-1980^[78] she served as the chair of that board, the first woman to do so.^[79] During her time as chair, funding for the Corporation was expanded from $90 million to $300 million; subsequently she successfully fought President Ronald Reagan's attempts to reduce the funding and change the nature of the organization.^[67]

Following her husband's November 1978 election as Governor of Arkansas, Rodham became First Lady of Arkansas in January 1979, her title for a total of twelve years (1979?1981, 1983?1992). Clinton appointed her chair of the Rural Health Advisory Committee the same year,^[80] where she successfully secured federal funds to expand medical facilities in Arkansas's poorest areas without affecting doctors' fees.^[81]

In 1979, Rodham became the first woman to be made a full partner of Rose Law Firm.^[82] From 1978 until they entered the White House, she had a higher salary than her husband.^[83] During 1978 and 1979, while looking to supplement their income, Rodham made a spectacular profit from trading cattle futures contracts;^[84] an initial $1,000 investment generated nearly $100,000 when she stopped trading after ten months.^[85] The couple also began their ill-fated investment in the Whitewater Development Corporation real estate venture with Jim and Susan McDougal at this time.^[84]

On February 27, 1980, Rodham gave birth to a daughter, Chelsea, her only child. In November 1980, Bill Clinton was defeated in his bid for reelection.

Later Arkansas years

Governor Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton attend the 1987 Dinner Honoring the Nation's Governors with President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan.

Clinton continued to practice law with the Rose Law Firm while she was First Lady of Arkansas. She earned less than the other partners, as she billed fewer hours,^[93] but still made more than $200,000 in her final year there.^[94] She seldom did trial work,^[94] but the firm considered her a "rainmaker" because she brought in clients, partly thanks to the prestige she lent the firm and to her corporate board connections.^[94] She was also very influential in the appointment of state judges.^[94] Bill Clinton's Republican opponent in his 1986 gubernatorial reelection campaign accused the Clintons of conflict of interest, because Rose Law did state business; the Clintons deflected the charge by saying that state fees were walled off by the firm before her profits were calculated.^[95]

From 1982 to 1988, Clinton was on board of directors, sometimes as chair, of the New World Foundation,^[96] which funded a variety of New Left interest groups.^[97] From 1987 to 1991, she chaired the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession,^[98] which addressed gender bias in the law profession and induced the association to adopt measures to combat it.^[98] She was twice named by the National Law Journal as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America: in 1988 and in 1991.^[99] When Bill Clinton thought about not running again for governor in 1990, Hillary considered running herself, but private polls were unfavorable and in the end he ran and was reelected for the final time.^[100]

Clinton served on the boards of the Arkansas Children's Hospital Legal Services (1988?1992)^[101] and the Children's Defense Fund (as chair, 1986?1992).^[102][2] In addition to her positions with non-profit organizations, she also held positions on the corporate board of directors of TCBY (1985?1992),^[103] Wal-Mart Stores (1986?1992)^[104] and Lafarge (1990?1992).^[105] TCBY and Wal-Mart were Arkansas-based companies that were also clients of Rose Law.^[94][106] Clinton was the first female member on Wal-Mart's board, added following pressure on chairman Sam Walton to name a woman to the board.^[106] Once there, she pushed successfully for Wal-Mart to adopt more environmentally friendly practices, was largely unsuccessful in a campaign for more women to be added to the company's management, and was silent about the company's famously anti-labor union practices.^{[106][107][104]}

1992 Bill Clinton presidential campaign

Hillary Rodham Clinton, 1992

First Lady of the United States

Role as First Lady

When Bill Clinton took office as president in January 1993, Hillary Rodham Clinton became the First Lady of the United States, and announced that she would be using that form of her name.^[115] She was the first First Lady to hold a post-graduate degree^[116] and to have her own professional career up to the time of entering the White House.^[116] She was also the first to take up an office in the West Wing of the White House:^[46] the First Lady usually stays in the East Wing. She is regarded as the most openly empowered presidential wife in American history, save for Eleanor Roosevelt.^[117][118]

The Clinton family arrives at the White House courtesy of Marine One, 1993.

Health care and other policy initiatives

Hillary Rodham Clinton's Gallup Poll favorable/unfavorable ratings, 1992?1996.^[131]

Clinton reads to a child during a school visit

Along with Senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, she was a force behind passage of the State Children's Health Insurance Program in 1997,^{[139][140][141][142]} a federal effort that provided state support for children whose parents were unable to provide them with health coverage, and conducted outreach efforts on behalf of enrolling children in the program once it became law.^[142] She promoted nationwide immunization against childhood illnesses and encouraged older women to seek a mammogram to detect breast cancer, with coverage provided by Medicare.^[143] She successfully sought to increase research funding for prostate cancer and childhood asthma at the National Institutes of Health.^[46] The First Lady worked to investigate reports of an illness that affected veterans of the Gulf War, which became known as the Gulf War syndrome.^[46] Together with Attorney General Janet Reno, Clinton helped create the Office on Violence Against Women at the Department of Justice.^[46] In 1997, she initiated and shepherded the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which she regarded as her greatest accomplishment as First Lady.^[46][144] In 1999, she was instrumental in passage of the Foster Care Independence Act, which doubled federal monies for teenagers aging out of foster care.^[144] As First Lady, Clinton hosted numerous White House conferences, including ones on Child Care (1997),^[145] on Early Childhood Development and Learning (1997),^[146] and on Children and Adolescents (2000).^[147] She also hosted the first-ever White House Conference on Teenagers (2000)^[148] and the first-ever White House Conference on Philanthropy (1999).^[149]

Hillary Clinton traveled to 79 countries during this time,^[150] breaking the mark for most-traveled First Lady held by Pat Nixon.^[151] In a September 1995 speech before the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, Clinton argued very forcefully against practices that abused women around the world and in the People's Republic of China itself,^[152] declaring "that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights"^[152] and resisting Chinese pressure to soften her remarks.^[150] She was one of the most prominent international figures during the late 1990s to speak out against the treatment of Afghan women by the Islamist fundamentalist Taliban.^[153][154] She helped create Vital Voices, an international initiative sponsored by the United States to promote the participation of women in the political processes of their countries.^[155]

Whitewater and other investigations

The Whitewater controversy was the focus of media attention from the publication of a New York Times report during the 1992 presidential campaign,^[156] and throughout her time as First Lady. The Clintons had lost their late-1970s investment in the Whitewater Development Corporation;^[157] at the same time, their partners in that investment, Jim and Susan McDougal, operated Madison Guaranty, a savings and loan institution that retained the legal services of Rose Law Firm^[157] and may have been improperly subsidizing Whitewater losses.^[156] Madison Guaranty later failed, and Clinton's work at Rose was scrutinized for a possible conflict of interest in representing the bank before state regulators that her husband had appointed;^[156] she claimed she had done minimal work for the bank.^[158] Independent counsels Robert Fiske and Kenneth Starr subpoenaed Clinton's legal billing records; she said she did not know where they were.^[159][160] The records were found in the First Lady's White House book room after a two-year search, and delivered to investigators in early 1996.^[160] The delayed appearance of the records sparked intense interest and another investigation about how they surfaced and where they had been;^[160] Clinton attributed the problem to disorganization that resulted from their move from the Arkansas Governor's Mansion and the effects of a White House renovation.^[161] After the discovery of the records, on January 26, 1996, Clinton made history by becoming the first First Lady to be subpoenaed to testify before a Federal grand jury.^[159] After several Independent Counsels investigated, a final report was issued in 2000 which stated that there was insufficient evidence that either Clinton had engaged in criminal wrongdoing.^[162]

The Clinton family takes an Inauguration Day walk down Pennsylvania Avenue to start Bill Clinton's second term in office. January 20, 1997.

Other investigations took place during Hillary Clinton's time as First Lady. Scrutiny of the May 1993 firings of the White House Travel Office employees, an affair that became known as "Travelgate", began with charges that the White House had used audited financial irregularities in the Travel Office operation as an excuse to replace the staff with friends from Arkansas.^[163] The 1996 discovery of a two-year-old White House memo caused the investigation to focus more on whether Hillary Clinton had orchestrated the firings and whether the statements she made to investigators regarding her role in the firings were true.^[164][165] The 2000 final Independent Counsel report concluded she was involved in the firings and that she had made "factually false" statements, but that there was insufficient evidence that she knew the statements were false, or knew that her actions would lead to firings, to prosecute her.^[166] Following deputy White House counsel Vince Foster's July 1993 suicide, allegations were made that Hillary Clinton had ordered the removal of potentially damaging files (related to Whitewater or other matters) from Foster's office on the night of his death.^[167] Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr investigated this, and by 1999 Starr was reported to be holding the investigation open, despite his staff having told him there was no case to be made.^[168] When Starr's successor Robert Ray issued his final Whitewater reports in 2000, no claims were made against Hillary Clinton regarding this.^[169] In March 1994 newspaper reports revealed her spectacular profits from cattle futures trading in 1978?1979;^[170] allegations were made in the press of conflict of interest and disguised bribery,^[171] and several individuals analyzed her trading records, but no official investigation was made and she was never charged with any wrongdoing.^[171] An outgrowth of the Travelgate investigation was the June 1996 discovery of improper White House access to hundreds of FBI background reports on former Republican White House employees, an affair that some called "Filegate";^[172] accusations were made that Hillary Clinton had requested these files and that she had recommended hiring an unqualified individual to head the White House Security Office.^[173] The 2000 final Independent Counsel report found no substantial or credible evidence that Hillary Clinton had any role or showed any misconduct in the matter.^[172]

Lewinsky scandal

Hillary Rodham Clinton's Gallup Poll favorable/unfavorable ratings, 1997?2000.^[131]

There was a mix of public reactions to Hillary Clinton after this: some women admired her strength and poise in private matters made public, some sympathized with her as a victim of her husband's insensitive behavior, others criticized her as being an enabler to her husband's indiscretions, while still others accused her of cynically staying in a failed marriage as a way of keeping or even fostering her own political influence.^[181] Overall, her public approval ratings in the wake of the revelations shot upward to around 70 percent, the highest they had ever been.^[182] In her 2003 memoir, she would attribute her decision to stay married to love: "No one understands me better and no one can make me laugh the way Bill does. Even after all these years, he is still the most interesting, energizing and fully alive person I have ever met."^[183]

Traditional duties

Clinton initiated and was Founding Chair of the Save America's Treasures program, a national effort that matched federal funds to private donations for the purpose of preserving and restoring historic items and sites,^[184] including the flag that inspired "The Star-Spangled Banner" and the First Ladies Historic Site in Canton, Ohio.^[46] She was head of the White House Millennium Council,^[185] and hosted Millennium Evenings,^[186] a series of lectures that discussed futures studies, one of which became the first live simultaneous webcast from the White House.^[46] Clinton also created the first Sculpture Garden there, which displayed large contemporary American works of art loaned from museums in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden.^[187]

In the White House, Clinton placed donated handicrafts of contemporary American artisans, such as pottery and glassware, on rotating display in the state rooms.^[46] She oversaw the restoration of the Blue Room to be historically authentic to the period of James Monroe,^[188] the redecoration of the Treaty Room into the presidential study along nineteenth century lines,^[189] and the redecoration of the Map Room to how it looked during World War II.^[189] Clinton hosted many large-scale events at the White House, such as a St. Patrick's Day reception, a state dinner for visiting Chinese dignitaries, a contemporary music concert that raised funds for music education in public schools, a New Year's Eve celebration at the turn of the twenty-first century, and a state dinner honoring the bicentennial of the White House in November 2000.^[46]

Senate election of 2000

The long-serving United States Senator from New York, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, announced his retirement in November 1998. Several prominent Democratic figures, including Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York, urged Clinton to run for Moynihan's open seat in the United States Senate election of 2000.^[190] When she decided to run, Clinton and her husband purchased a home in Chappaqua, New York, north of New York City in September 1999.^[191] She became the first First Lady of the United States to be a candidate for elected office.^[192] At first, Clinton was expected to face Rudy Giuliani, the Mayor of New York City, as her Republican opponent in the election. However, Giuliani withdrew from the race in May 2000 after being diagnosed with prostate cancer and having developments in his personal life become very public, and Clinton instead faced Rick Lazio, a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives representing New York's 2nd congressional district. Throughout the campaign, Clinton was accused of carpetbagging by her opponents, as she had never resided in New York nor participated in the state's politics prior to this race. Clinton began her campaign by visiting every county in the state, in a "listening tour" of small-group settings.^[193] During the campaign, she devoted considerable time in traditionally Republican Upstate New York regions.^[194] Clinton vowed to improve the economic situation in those areas, promising to deliver 200,000 jobs to the state over her term. Her plan included specific tax credits to reward job creation and encourage business investment, especially in the high-tech sector. She called for personal tax cuts for college tuition and long-term care.^[194]

The contest drew national attention. Lazio blundered during a September debate by seeming to invade Clinton's personal space trying to get her to sign a fundraising agreement.^[195] The campaigns of Clinton and Lazio, along with Giuliani's initial effort, spent a record combined $90 million.^[196] Clinton won the election on November 7, 2000, with 55 percent of the vote to Lazio's 43 percent.^[195] She was sworn in as United States Senator on January 3, 2001.

United States Senator

Re-enactment of Hillary Rodham Clinton being sworn in as a United States Senator by Vice President Al Gore in the Old Senate Chamber, as President Clinton and daughter Chelsea look on. January 3, 2001.

First term

Upon entering the Senate, Clinton maintained a low public profile and built relationships with senators from both parties.^[197] She forged alliances with religiously inclined senators by becoming a regular participant in the Senate Prayer Breakfast.^[123][198]

Clinton has served on five Senate committees: Committee on Budget (2001?2002),^[199] Committee on Armed Services (since 2003),^[200] Committee on Environment and Public Works (since 2001),^[199] Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (since 2001)^[199] and Special Committee on Aging.^[201] She is also a Commissioner of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe^[202] (since 2001).^[203]

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Clinton sought to obtain funding for the recovery efforts in New York City and security improvements in her state. Working with New York's senior senator, Charles Schumer, she was instrumental in quickly securing $21 billion in funding for the World Trade Center site's redevelopment.^[204][198] She subsequently took a leading role in investigating the health issues faced by 9/11 first responders.^[205] Clinton voted for the USA Patriot Act in October 2001. In 2005, when the act was up for renewal, she worked to address some of the civil liberties concerns with it,^[206] before voting in favor of a compromise renewed act in March 2006 that gained large majority support.^[207]

Clinton strongly supported the 2001 U.S. military action in Afghanistan, saying it was a chance to combat terrorism while improving the lives of Afghan women who suffered under the Taliban government.^[208] Clinton voted in favor of the October 2002 Iraq War Resolution, which authorized United States President George W. Bush to use military force against Iraq, should such action be required to enforce a United Nations Security Council Resolution after pursuing with diplomatic efforts. (However, Clinton voted against the Levin Amendment to the Resolution, which would have required the President to conduct vigorous diplomacy at the U.N., and would have also required a separate Congressional authorization to unilaterally invade Iraq.^[200] She did vote for the Byrd Amendment to the Resolution, which would have limited the Congressional authorization to one year increments, but the only mechanism necessary for the President to renew his mandate without any Congressional oversight was to claim that the Iraq War was vital to national security each year the authorization required renewal.)^[200]

Hillary Rodham Clinton's Gallup Poll favorable/unfavorable ratings, 2001?2007.^[131]

Senator Clinton voted against President Bush's two major tax cut packages, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003.^[214] Clinton voted against both the 2005 confirmation of John G. Roberts as Chief Justice of the United States^[215] and the 2006 confirmation of Samuel Alito to the United States Supreme Court.^[216]

In 2005, Clinton called for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate how hidden sex scenes showed up in the controversial video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.^[217] Along with Senators Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh, she introduced the Family Entertainment Protection Act, intended to protect children from inappropriate content found in video games. In July 2004 and June 2006, Clinton voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment that sought to prohibit same-sex marriage.^[214][218]

Looking to establish a "progressive infrastructure" to rival that of American conservatism,^[219] Clinton played a formative role in conversations that led to the 2003 founding of former Clinton administration chief of staff John Podesta's Center for American Progress;^[220] shared aides with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, founded in 2003;^[221] advised and nurtured the Clintons' former antagonist David Brock's Media Matters for America, created in 2004;^[221] and following the 2004 Senate elections, successfully pushed new Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid to create a Senate war room to handle daily political messaging.^[221]

Reelection campaign of 2006

In November 2004, Clinton announced that she would seek a second Senate term. The early frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, withdrew from the contest after several months of poor campaign performance.^[222] Clinton easily won the Democratic nomination over opposition from anti-war activist Jonathan Tasini.^[223] Clinton's eventual opponents in the general election were Republican candidate John Spencer, a former mayor of Yonkers, along with several third-party candidates. Throughout the campaign, Clinton consistently led Spencer in the polls by wide margins. She won the election on November 7, 2006 with 67 percent of the vote to Spencer's 31 percent,^[224] carrying all but four of New York's sixty-two counties.^[225] Clinton spent $36 million for her reelection, more than any other candidate for Senate in the 2006 elections. She was criticized by some Democrats for spending too much in a one-sided contest, while some supporters were concerned she did not leave more funds for a potential presidential bid in 2008.^[226] In the following months she transferred $10 million of her Senate funds toward her presidential campaign.^[227]

Second term

Senator Clinton listens as Chief of Naval Operations Navy Admiral Mike Mullen responds to a question during his 2007 confirmation hearing with the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Clinton opposed the Iraq War troop surge of 2007 and supported a February 2007 non-binding Senate resolution against it, which failed to gain cloture.^[228] In March 2007 she voted in favor of a war spending bill that required President Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq within a certain deadline; it passed almost completely along party lines^[229] but was subsequently vetoed by President Bush. In May 2007 a compromise war funding bill that removed withdrawal deadlines but tied funding to progress benchmarks for the Iraqi government passed the Senate by a vote of 80-14 and would be signed by Bush; Clinton was one of those who voted against it.^[230] Clinton responded to General David Petraeus's September 2007 Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq by saying, "I think that the reports that you provide to us really require a willing suspension of disbelief."^[231] In September 2007 she voted in favor of a Senate resolution calling on the State Department to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps "a foreign terrorist organization", which passed 76-22.^[232]

In March 2007, in response to the dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy, Clinton called on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign.^[233] In May and June 2007, regarding the high-profile, hotly debated comprehensive immigration reform bill known as the Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act of 2007, Clinton cast a number of votes in support of the bill, which eventually failed to gain cloture.^[234]

Presidential campaign of 2008

Clinton had been preparing for a potential candidacy for United States President since at least early 2003.^[235] On January 20, 2007, Clinton announced via her web site the formation of a presidential exploratory committee for the United States presidential election of 2008.^[236] She stated, "I'm in, and I'm in to win."^[236] No woman has ever been nominated by a major party for President of the United States. In April 2007, the Clintons liquidated a blind trust that had been established when Bill Clinton became president in 1993, in order to avoid the possibility of ethical conflicts or political embarrassments in the trust as Hillary Clinton undertook her presidential race.^[237] Later disclosure statements revealed that the couple's worth was now upwards of $50 million,^[237] and that they had earned over $100 million since 2000, with most of it coming from Bill Clinton's books, speaking engagements, and other activities.^[238]

Clinton speaking at a large campaign rally. South Hall, San Jose, California, February 1, 2008.

Clinton campaigning at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minnesota, two days before Super Tuesday 2008.

Obama then won the next eleven caucuses and primaries, often by large margins, and extended the overall delegate lead from Clinton.^{[267][268][269]} On March 4, Clinton broke the string of losses by winning in Ohio among other places,^[270] while Obama scored wins then and in the following week.^[271] Throughout the campaign, Obama dominated caucuses,^[272] and did well in primaries where African Americans or younger, college-educated, or more affluent voters were heavily represented; Clinton did well in primaries where Hispanics or older, non-college-educated, or working-class white voters predominated.^[273][274] Former Democratic vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro's claim that Obama's lead was solely due to his being African-American helped revive the racially tinged aspect of the contest;^[275] Ferraro resigned from the Clinton campaign's finance committee as Clinton repudiated the remarks.^[276] Meanwhile, some Democratic party leaders expressed concern that the drawn-out campaign between the two could damage the winner in the general election contest against presumptive Republican nominee John McCain,^[277][278] especially if an eventual triumph for Clinton was won via party-appointed superdelegates.^[279][278] Clinton's admission in late March?following the airing of video?that her campaign statements about having been under hostile fire from snipers during a 1996 visit to U.S. troops at Tuzla Air Base in Bosnia-Herzegovina were not true^[280] attracted considerable media attention, and the contradiction risked undermining both her credibility and her claims of foreign policy expertise as First Lady.^[281] On April 22 she won the Pennsylvania primary by 9 points, keeping her campaign alive.^[282] However, on May 6, a narrow win in the Indiana primary coupled with a large loss in the North Carolina primary damaged her chances and led to speculation about whether she coul