Clinton, Hillary Rodham

orig. Hillary Diane Rodham

born Oct. 26, 1947, Chicago, Ill., U.S.

U.S. lawyer, first lady, and politician.

She attended Wellesley College and Yale Law School, from which she graduated first in her class. Her early professional interests focused on family law and children's rights. In 1975 she married her Yale classmate Bill Clinton, and she became first lady of Arkansas on his election as governor in 1979. She was twice named one of America's 100 most influential lawyers by the National Law Journal. When her husband became president (1993), she wielded power and influence almost unprecedented for a first lady. As head of the Task Force on National Health Care Reform, she proposed the first national health-care program in the U.S. but saw the initiative defeated. In 2000 she was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York, thereby becoming the first wife of a president to win elective office.

* * *

▪ 2000

      On Nov. 23, 1999, ending months of speculation, Hillary Rodham Clinton confirmed that she would be a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from New York in 2000. She had made several trips to the state, what she called “listening tours,” to test the sentiment for her candidacy, and it was announced in September that the Clintons had purchased a house in Westchester County, which would satisfy the residency requirement. She was the first wife of a U.S. president to seek public office.

      Hillary Clinton had taken a prominent role in national affairs during the two terms of her husband, Pres. Bill Clinton. In 1993 the president appointed her to head the Task Force on National Health Care Reform, and after extensive hearings the group recommended a national insurance plan that would rely on “managed competition” to control costs. There was intense opposition from the medical establishment and insurance companies, as well as from Republicans, and within a year the Clintons abandoned their efforts. Despite the defeat, the first lady continued to be an advocate for issues such as education and child welfare, and her 1996 book It Takes a Village, on the role of the community in raising children, was a best-seller. She campaigned for Democrats in important races, and she traveled throughout the world, often as the representative of the president.

      During her husband's presidency Hillary Clinton was plagued by a series of accusations. There were, for example, questions about a $1,000 investment in the commodities markets in the late 1970s that earned nearly $100,000. An independent prosecutor investigated the role of the Clintons and a number of Arkansas associates in a failed land development scheme, known as Whitewater, in the 1980s. There were also charges that she had a hand in the politically motivated firings of members of the White House travel office in 1993, in the mishandling of the personal papers of Vincent W. Foster, deputy White House counsel, who committed suicide later in that year, and in the improper use of FBI files on political opponents in the 1996 elections. Formal legal charges on any of the matters were never brought against her. When the president was impeached in 1998 for testimony given in investigations of extramarital affairs, she continued to support her husband in public.

      Hillary Diane Rodham was born on Oct. 26, 1947, in Chicago. She graduated from Wellesley (Mass.) College in 1969 and from Yale Law School, where she met her future husband, in 1973. It was at this time that she parted with her Republican upbringing for liberal Democratic politics. She followed Clinton to Arkansas, where he embarked upon a political career and where she taught and practiced law. They were married on Oct. 11, 1975.

Robert Rauch

▪ 1994

      During the 1992 presidential campaign, Hillary Rodham Clinton commented that she could have stayed at home, baked cookies, and had teas rather than pursue her own legal career, a statement for which she took a lot of heat. In 1993, as leader of the Task Force on National Health Care Reform, the nation's first professional first lady proved that she preferred to take the heat on Capitol Hill rather than in the kitchen.

      Hillary Diane Rodham was born in Chicago on Oct. 26, 1947, and reared in a staunch Republican household. An early influence on her life was her church youth minister, who encouraged his students to socialize with people from other racial backgrounds and once took a group to hear (and meet) civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr.

      Hillary graduated from high school in 1965 in the top 5% of her class and was voted most likely to succeed. She entered Wellesley (Mass.) College, majoring in political science and serving as head of the local chapter of the Young Republicans. Her political proclivities took a sharp turn in the late 1960s, when the assassinations of Malcolm X, King, and Sen. Robert Kennedy, coupled with the violence she witnessed outside the 1968 Democratic national convention, harkened her back to the teachings of her youth minister and converted her to the Democratic Party. She worked to have more black students admitted to Wellesley, wrote her senior thesis on poverty and community development, and enrolled at Yale Law School, where she met Bill Clinton (q.v.). In 1975 they were married, although she opted to retain her maiden name.

      The couple moved to Little Rock, Ark., in 1976 when Bill was elected state attorney general. In 1978 Hillary aided Bill's campaign for governor while working at Rose Law Firm, where she was made a partner in 1980. During her husband's first term as governor, she served as head of the Rural Health Advisory Committee, which dealt with the problem of providing health care to isolated areas. After Bill lost his reelection bid, Hillary underwent an image makeover: losing weight, changing her hair and clothing style, and deciding to use her husband's last name. Bill was returned to office in 1982 and subsequently served four more terms, during which Hillary led the drive for statewide school reforms and was twice named one of the nation's top 100 lawyers.

      As first lady, Hillary drew both praise and criticism for her image as independent, outspoken, and supportive. Despite a grueling presidential campaign, ongoing allegations of her husband's infidelity when he was governor, and the death of her father in April 1993, she completed an exhausting series of meetings and hearings. In September the president unveiled to the nation the fruits of his wife's labours—a proposal for the first national health-care program in the U.S.

      (ANTHONY L. GREEN)

* * *

▪ United States senator, first lady, and secretary of state

née  Hillary Diane Rodham 

born October 26, 1947, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.

 

 American lawyer and politician who served as a U.S. senator (2001–09) and secretary of state (2009– ) in the administration of Pres. Barack Obama (Obama, Barack). She also served as first lady (1993–2001) during the administration of her husband, Bill Clinton (Clinton, Bill), 42nd president of the United States.

      The first president's wife born after World War II, Hillary was the eldest child of Hugh and Dorothy Rodham. She grew up in Park Ridge, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, where her father's textile business provided the family with a comfortable income; her parents' emphasis on hard work and academic excellence set high standards.

      A student leader in public schools, she was active in youth programs at the First United Methodist Church. Although she later became associated with liberal causes, during this time she adhered to the Republican Party of her parents. She campaigned for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater (Goldwater, Barry) in 1964 and chaired the local chapter of the Young Republicans. A year later, after she enrolled at Wellesley College, her political views began to change. Influenced by the assassinations of Malcolm X, Robert F. Kennedy (Kennedy, Robert F.), and Martin Luther King, Jr. (King, Martin Luther, Jr.), she joined the Democratic Party and volunteered in the presidential campaign of antiwar candidate Eugene McCarthy (McCarthy, Eugene J.).

      After her graduation from Wellesley in 1969, Hillary entered Yale Law School, where she came under the influence of Yale alumna Marian Wright Edelman (Edelman, Marian Wright), a lawyer and children's rights advocate. Through her work with Edelman, she developed a strong interest in family law and issues affecting children.

      Although Hillary met Bill Clinton at Yale, they took separate paths after graduation in 1973. He returned to his native Arkansas, and she worked with Edelman in Massachusetts for the Children's Defense Fund. In 1974 Hillary participated in the Watergate (Watergate Scandal) inquiry into the possible impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon (Nixon, Richard M.). When her assignment ended with Nixon's resignation in August 1974, she made what some people consider the crucial decision of her life—she moved to Arkansas. She taught at the University of Arkansas School of Law, and, following her marriage to Bill Clinton on October 11, 1975, she joined the prominent Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Arkansas, where she later became a partner.

      After Bill was elected governor of Arkansas in 1978, she continued to pursue her career and retained her maiden name (until 1982), bringing considerable criticism from voters who felt that her failure to change her name indicated a lack of commitment to her husband. Their only child, Chelsea Victoria, was born in 1980.

      Throughout Bill's tenure as governor (1979–81, 1983–92), Hillary worked on programs that aided children and the disadvantaged; she also maintained a successful law practice. She served on the boards of several high-profile corporations and was twice named one of the nation's 100 most influential lawyers (1988, 1991) by the National Law Journal. She also served as chair of the Arkansas Education Standards Committee and founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. She was named Arkansas Woman of the Year in 1983 and Arkansas Young Mother of the Year in 1984.

      In Bill's 1992 presidential campaign, Hillary played a crucial role by greeting voters, giving speeches, and serving as one of her husband's chief advisers. Her appearance with him on the television news program 60 Minutes in January 1992 made her name a household word. Responding to questions about Bill's alleged 12-year sexual relationship with an Arkansas woman, Gennifer Flowers, Bill and Hillary discussed their marital problems, and Hillary told voters to judge her husband by his record—adding that, if they did not like what they saw, then, “heck, don't vote for him.”

      With a professional career unequaled by any previous presidential candidate's wife, Hillary was heavily scrutinized. Conservatives complained that she had her own agenda, because she had worked for some liberal causes. During one campaign stop, she defended herself from such criticism by asserting that she could have “stayed home and baked cookies.” This impromptu remark was picked up by the press and used by her critics as evidence of her lack of respect for women who are full-time homemakers.

      Some of Hillary's financial dealings raised suspicions of impropriety and led to major investigations after she became first lady. Her investment in Whitewater, a real estate development in Arkansas, and her commodities trading in 1978–79—through which she reportedly turned a $1,000 investment into $100,000 in a few months—came under close scrutiny.

      During the 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton sometimes spoke of a “twofer” (“two for the price of one”) presidency, implying that Hillary would play an important role in his administration. Early indications from the Clinton White House supported this interpretation. She appointed an experienced staff and set up her own office in the West Wing, an unprecedented move. Her husband appointed her to head the Task Force on National Health Care, a centrepiece of his legislative agenda. She encountered sharp criticism when she closed the sessions of the task force to the public, and doctors and other health care professionals objected that she was not a “government official” and had no right to bar them from the proceedings. An appeals court later supported her stand, ruling that presidents' wives have “a longstanding tradition of public service…act[ing]…as advisers and personal representatives of their husbands.” To promote the findings of the task force, she appeared before five congressional committees and received considerable and mostly favourable press coverage for her expertise on the subject. But Congress ultimately rejected the task force's recommendations, and her role in the health care debate galvanized conservatives and helped Republicans recapture Congress in the 1994 elections.

      Hillary was criticized on other matters as well, including her role in the firing of seven staff members from the White House travel office (“Travelgate”) and her involvement in legal maneuvering by the White House during the Whitewater investigation. As the 1996 election approached, she was less visible and played a more traditional role as first lady. Her first book, It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us (1996), described her views on child rearing and prompted accolades from supporters and stark criticism from her opponents.

      Revelations about President Clinton's affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky brought the first lady back into the spotlight in a complex way. She stood faithfully by her husband during the scandal—in which her husband first denied and then admitted to having had a sexual relationship with Lewinsky—and throughout his ensuing impeachment and trial in the Senate.

      In 1999 Hillary Rodham Clinton made history of a different sort when she launched her candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat from New York being vacated by Daniel Patrick Moynihan (Moynihan, Daniel Patrick). To meet the state's residency requirement, she moved out of Washington, D.C., on January 5, 2000, to a house that she and the president purchased in Chappaqua, New York. After a bitter campaign, she defeated Republican Rick Lazio by a substantial margin to become the first first lady to win elective office. Although often a subject of controversy, Hillary showed that the ceremonial parts of the first lady's job could be merged with a strong role in public policy and that the clout of the first lady could be converted into a personal political power base.

      Sworn into office on January 3, 2001, Hillary continued to push for health care reform, and she remained an advocate for children. She served on several senatorial committees, including the Committee for Armed Services. Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, she supported the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan but grew highly critical of President George W. Bush (Bush, George W.)'s handling of the Iraq War. In 2003 Hillary's much-anticipated memoir of her White House years, Living History, was published and set sales records; she had received an advance of about $8 million for the book. In 2006 she was easily reelected to the Senate.

Betty Boyd Caroli  The following year Hillary announced that she would seek the Democratic Party's presidential nomination for 2008. She began the primary season as the front-runner for the nomination but placed a disappointing third in the first contest, the Iowa caucus, on January 3, 2008. Her campaign quickly rebounded, and she won the New Hampshire primary five days later. On Super Tuesday, February 5, Clinton won important states such as California, Massachusetts, and New York, but she failed to gain a significant lead over Barack Obama (Obama, Barack) in the number of pledged convention delegates. Obama won 11 consecutive states following Super Tuesday to take over the delegate lead and become the new favourite for the nomination, but Clinton rebounded in early March with key victories in Ohio and Texas, and in April she added to her momentum by winning the Pennsylvania primary. However, Clinton's narrow victory in Indiana and substantial loss in North Carolina in early May severely limited the possibility of her garnering enough delegates to overtake Obama before the final primaries in June. On June 3, following the final primaries in Montana and South Dakota, Obama passed the delegate threshold and became the presumptive Democratic nominee. He officially secured the party's nomination on August 27 at the Democratic National Convention in Denver and went on to win the general election on November 4. In December 2008 Obama selected Clinton to serve as secretary of state, and she was easily confirmed by the Senate in January 2009.

Ed.

Additional Reading

A concise summary of Hillary Rodham Clinton's early years and first term as first lady is Lewis L. Gould, “Hillary Rodham Clinton,” in Lewis L. Gould (ed.), American First Ladies (1996), pp. 630–650. Betty Boyd Caroli, First Ladies, expanded ed. (1995), pp. 288–308, discusses how her career reflected that of others of her generation. Numerous full-length biographies, many of them negative, have been written about Hillary Clinton, including Gail Sheehy, Hillary's Choice (1999); Joyce Milton, The First Partner: Hillary Rodham Clinton (1999); Christopher Andersen, Bill and Hillary: The Marriage (1999); Donnie Radcliffe, Hillary Rodham Clinton: A First Lady for Our Time (1993, reissued with updates as Hillary Rodham Clinton: The Evolution of a First Lady, 1999); Jerry Oppenheimer, State of a Union: Inside the Complex Marriage of Bill and Hillary Clinton (2000); and David Brock, The Seduction of Hillary Rodham (1996).Betty Boyd Caroli

* * *