Hillary Clinton

American presidential candidate for the 2016 election, attorney and First Lady of the U.S. (1993-2001) as the wife of President Bill Clinton. The daughter and first-born child of a textile company owner, she was raised in an advantaged environment with a good education. From the time she was president of her high school class, she brought home honors. Socially conscious, she was always a shrewd and capable organizer, a graduate of Wellesley and Yale Law School. She met Bill Clinton when they were both Yale Law School students in 1971. Their intellectual partnership began during mock-court competition where their skills complimented each other. They worked together on the McGovern campaign, establishing common goals and ideologies, and they married on 11 October 1975. They both gave up something to stay together. If Bill were simply thinking of future election, he could have married an Arkansas beauty queen instead of a fiercely idealistic Chicago feminist. If Hillary had not been so madly in love, she would never have dropped a promising career as a Washington lawyer to move to Arkansas. She told friends that no other man met her standards of likeability and intellectual power. Soon they became a remarkably effective political team. They had a daughter, Chelsea, on 27 February 1980, to whom they are both devoted. The marriage hit rocky times in the late '80s when Bill Clinton was caught in a long-term affair. The Gennifer Flowers accusation did not come out until 1992; apparently he learned discretion from an earlier dalliance. They patched it up, mostly for the sake of Chelsea. Twice named as one of the 100 top lawyers in the U.S., Hillary serves on 17 civic and corporate boards. While in Arkansas as the Governor's wife, she worked in legal private practice in a law firm. Her husband was voted Governor of Arkansas in 1978 at age 32. He was sworn into office as U.S. President on 20 January 1993, 11:59 AM EST, in Washington, DC. While in the White House, there were plenty of loud fights reported, a vivid feature in their relationship. Many claim that their intimacy and affection was never posed, but that they are deeply bonded in spite of all external influences. Hillary has stood by her man in the famous 1992 denial of Gennifer Flowers, and the 1998 denial of Monica Lewinsky, both of which Bill later retracted in a spirit of contrition. Denial has an expedient place in many marriages, indeed may be the key feature in some families. On 13 August 1998, she heard the truth about her husband's 18-month tryst with the White House intern who was six years older than their daughter, and four days later she held her head high during the public humiliation of his public admission that he had "misled people." Her body language in photographs showed her deep anger, but according to friends, she turned inward, to her spiritual side. Her religion has always been central to Hillary and she has read widely of different faiths, remaining a strong Methodist foundation. In the following weeks, when she was asked conversationally if she'd ever had a stress-test, she replied, dead-pan, "I'm having one now." Moving toward the year 2000, Clinton had given serious thought during the latter part of 1999 for the candidacy of running for the Senate. She had made the necessary phone calls and had moved from "Tell me why" to "Tell me why not," the only visible drawback at this time being a conflict of interest with the possible Presidential Campaign of Al Gore. She did indeed announce her candidacy in New York at 4:08 PM EST, on 6 February 2000, in Purchase, New York. On 16 May 2000, Hillary received the nomination of the N.Y. Democratic Party for U.S. senator. As Mayor Guiliani dropped out of the race for health reasons, she ran against Rick A. Lazio (born 13 March 1958, Amityville, NY.) On 7 November 2000, she was elected a new Senator in New York. When her husband handed out 240 pardons during his last few hours in the presidential office, on 20 January 2001, some of the felons were connected to the supply of votes that Hillary won. In a statewide poll of 514 registered voters, forty-six percent of New York voters believe Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton did something unethical but not illegal in connection with the pardons. The New York Senator's long-anticipated memoir, which brought her $8 million advance from the publisher, was released for sale on 9 June 2003. The book is entitled "Living History." With the headlines “I’m in,” Clinton announced on 20 January 2007 via a video and text on her website her intent to form a presidential exploratory committee. After a long and grueling race against other Democratic contenders, she pulled ahead of all except Barack Obama. She withdrew from the Presidential race with a formal announcement on 4 June 2008. President-elect Barack Obama officially named her as his choice for Secretary of State on 1 December 2008. She was confirmed on 21 January 2009 and took her oath of office at 5:29 PM EST that afternoon. On her way to a meeting at the White House on 17 June 2009, she fell and fractured her right elbow. The next day she underwent surgery to repair the fracture. Her beloved mother, Dorothy Rodham, died at age 92 on 1 November 2011 in Washington, DC. In December 2012 she suffered from a blood clot behind her ear near the brain. She fully recovered, and on 1 February she handed in her resignation as secretary of state. On 13 June 2015, she started an election campaign to become president of the US in the November 2016 elections. She thus became the first female candidate to be nominated for president by a major U.S. political party. As part of her 2016 platform, she emphasized raising incomes, improvements to the Affordable Care Act and reform of campaign finance and Wall Street. She favored allowing pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, expanding and protecting LGBT and women's rights, and instituting family support through paid parental leave and universal preschool. Clinton was defeated by her Republican rival Donald Trump on 8 November 2016. Link to Wikipedia biography Link to Astrodienst discussion forum