Hillary Rodham Clinton

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Image:Hillary Rodham Clinton.jpg
Junior U.S. Senator, New York
Incumbent
Assumed office  January 3, 2001– Serving with Charles Schumer
Preceded by	Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Succeeded by	Incumbent (2013)
Born	October 26 1947 (age 60) Park Ridge, Chicago, Illinois
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Bill Clinton
Religion	Methodist
Signature	Image:HRClintonSignature.png

Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton (born October 26, 1947) is the junior United States Senator from New York, and a member of the Democratic Party. She is married to Bill Clinton, the 42^nd President of the United States, and was the First Lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001. She is a lawyer and a former First Lady of Arkansas.

Clinton was elected to the United States Senate in 2000, becoming the first First Lady elected to public office and the first female senator to represent New York. She was re-elected in 2006. As senator, she sits on the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on Environment and Public Works, the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, and the Special Committee on Aging.

On January 20, 2007, Clinton announced the formation of a presidential exploratory committee for the United States presidential election of 2008.^[1]

Early life and education

Hillary Diane Rodham was born at Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, and was raised in a Methodist family in Park Ridge, Illinois. Her father, Hugh Ellsworth Rodham, was a son of English immigrants and operated a small business in the textile industry. Her mother, Dorothy Emma Howell Rodham, was a homemaker. She has two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony.

As a child, Hillary Rodham was involved in many activities at church and at her public school in Park Ridge. She participated in a variety of sports and earned awards as a Brownie and Girl Scout.^[2] She attended Maine East High School, where she had participated in student council, the debating team and the National Honor Society. Before graduating from Maine South High School, she received the school's first social science award. Raised in a politically conservative family,^[3] she volunteered for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater in the United States presidential election of 1964.^[4] Her parents encouraged her to pursue the career of her choice.^[5]

In 1965, Rodham enrolled in Wellesley College. She became active in politics and served as the president of the Wellesley College Chapter of the College Republicans. In her junior year, Rodham was affected by the death of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., whom she had met in person in 1962.^[2] She attended the Wellesley in Washington program at the urging of Professor Alan Schechter, for whom she would write a senior thesis about the tactics of radical community organizer Saul Alinsky^[6] that later became the subject of mystery. Around this time, she decided to join the Democratic Party. In 1969, Rodham graduated with departmental honors in political science. She became the first student in Wellesley College history to deliver their commencement address.^[7] According to reports by the Associated Press, her speech received a standing ovation lasting seven minutes.^[8] She was featured in an article published in Life magazine, due to the response to a part of her speech that criticized Senator Edward Brooke, who had spoken before her at the commencement.^[2]

Rodham then entered Yale Law School, where she served on the Board of Editors of the Yale Review of Law and Social Action. During her second year, she volunteered at the Yale Child Study Center, learning about new research on early childhood brain development. She also took on cases of child abuse at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and worked at the city legal services to provide free advice for the poor. In the summer of 1970, she was awarded a grant to work at the Children's Defense Fund in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the late spring of 1971, she began dating Bill Clinton, who was also a law student at Yale. That summer, she traveled to Washington to work on Senator Walter Mondale's subcommittee on migrant workers, researching migrant problems in housing, sanitation, health and education. The following summer, Rodham campaigned in the western states for 1972 Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern. She received a Juris Doctor degree from Yale in 1973, having completed a thesis on the rights of children.^[2] She began a year of post-graduate study on children and medicine at the Yale Child Study Center.

Marriage and family, law career and First Lady of Arkansas

During her post-graduate study, Rodham served as staff attorney for the Children's Defense Fund and as a consultant to the Carnegie Council on Children.^[9] She was a member of the impeachment inquiry staff advising the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate scandal. Rodham later became one of two female faculty members at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville School of Law, where Bill Clinton was teaching as well.

On October 11, 1975, Hillary Rodham and Bill Clinton were married in Fayetteville, Arkansas; she kept her name as Hillary Rodham. They lived there briefly and then moved to the state capital of Little Rock, from which Bill conducted his first campaign, for U.S. Congress. Rodham joined the venerable Rose Law Firm in 1976, specializing in intellectual property while working pro bono in child advocacy. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the board of the Legal Services Corporation.

In 1978, with the election of her husband as Governor of Arkansas, Rodham became First Lady of Arkansas, her title for a total of 12 years. In 1979, she became the first woman to be made a full partner of Rose Law Firm.^[10] Her profits from cattle futures contracts in 1979 would later be examined without any official finding of wrongdoing.

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 re-election, but returned to office two years later by winning the election of 1982. During her husband's campaign in 1982, Rodham began to use the name Hillary Clinton.^[11]

In her twelve years as First Lady of Arkansas, Hillary Rodham Clinton had chaired the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee, where she successfully sought to improve testing standards of new teachers.^[12] She also chaired the Rural Health Advisory Committee and introduced the Arkansas' Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youth, a program that helps parents work with their children in preschool preparedness and literacy. She was named Arkansas Woman of the Year in 1983 and Arkansas Mother of the Year in 1984.^[13]

Clinton continued to practice law with the Rose Law Firm while she was First Lady of Arkansas. She was twice named by the National Law Journal as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America, in 1988 and in 1991.^[14] Clinton had co-founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, and served on the boards of the Arkansas Children's Hospital Legal Services and the Children's Defense Fund.^[5] Between 1985 and 1992, she held positions on the board of directors of TCBY, Wal-Mart Stores and Lafarge.^[15]

First Lady of the United States

After her husband became a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination of 1992, Hillary Clinton received national attention for the first time. Before the New Hampshire primary, tabloid publications printed claims that Bill Clinton had had an extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers, an Arkansas lounge singer.^[16] In response, the Clintons appeared together on 60 Minutes, during which Bill Clinton denied the affair but acknowledged he had caused "pain" in their marriage.^[17] (Years later, he would admit that the Flowers affair had happened.^[18]) Hillary Clinton made remarks about Tammy Wynette and baking cookies during the campaign that were ill-considered by her own admission. Bill Clinton said that electing him would get "two for the price of one", referring to the prominent role his wife would assume.^[19]

When Bill Clinton took office as president in January 1993, Hillary Rodham Clinton became the First Lady of the United States. She was the first First Lady to hold a post-graduate degree and to have her own professional career.^[20] She is regarded as the most openly empowered presidential wife in American history since Eleanor Roosevelt.^[21]

In 1993, the president appointed his wife to head the Task Force on National Health Care Reform. The recommendation of the task force became known as the Clinton health care plan, a complex proposal that would mandate employers to provide health coverage to their employees through individual health maintenance organizations. The plan was quickly derided as "Hillarycare" by its opponents, and did not receive enough support for a floor vote in either the House or the Senate, although both chambers were controlled by Democrats. The proposal was abandoned in September of 1994. Clinton later acknowledged in her book, Living History, that her political inexperience partly contributed to the defeat, but mentioned that many other factors were also responsible. Republicans made the Clinton health care plan a major campaign issue of the 1994 midterm elections,^[22] which saw a net Republican gain of 53 seats in the House election and 7 in the Senate election, winning control of both.^[23] Opponents of universal health care would continue to use "Hillarycare" as a pejorative label for similar plans by others.^[24]

Some critics called it inappropriate for the First Lady to play a central role in matters of public policy. Supporters pointed out that Clinton's role in policy was no different from that of other White House advisors and that voters were well aware that she would play an active role in her husband's Presidency.^[25] Bill Clinton's campaign promise of "two for the price of one" led opponents to refer derisively to the Clintons as "co-presidents",^[26] or sometimes "Billary".^[27]

Clinton became the first First Lady to be subpoenaed to testify before a Federal grand jury, when she was called in January 1996 to explain the sudden reemergence of documents regarding her work at the Rose Law firm.^[28][29] This was in connection with her role in the Whitewater affair, for which she never faced criminal charges. During her time as First Lady, Clinton was also the subject of official investigations regarding firings in the White House travel office, the circumstances of White House counsel Vince Foster's death, and questionable use of FBI background files. In none of these cases was Clinton ever officially charged with any wrongdoing.

In 1998, the Clintons' relationship became the subject of much speculation and gossip as a result of the Lewinsky scandal, when it was revealed the President had had an extramarital affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.^[30] Events surrounding this scandal eventually led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Later saying she had been misled by her husband's initial claims that no affair had taken place,^[31] Hillary Clinton stated at the time that the allegations against her husband were the result of a "vast right-wing conspiracy."^[32] After the evidence of President Clinton's encounters with Lewinsky became incontrovertible, she remained resolute that their marriage was solid. Both Clintons' memoirs later stated that the revelation of the affair was a very painful time in their marriage; Hillary Clinton faced both support and criticism for remaining in the marriage.

As First Lady, Clinton supported women's rights and children's welfare around the world.^[5] Clinton hosted numerous White House conferences on children's health, early childhood development and school violence. She promoted nationwide immunization against childhood illnesses and encouraged older women to seek a mammogram to detect breast cancer, with coverage provided by Medicare.^[34] She initiated the Children's Health Insurance Program in 1997, a federal effort that provided state support for children whose parents were unable to provide them with health coverage. She successfully sought to increase research funding for prostate cancer and childhood asthma at the National Institutes of Health.^[35] 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.^[35] In 1997, she initiated and shepherded the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which she regarded as her greatest accomplishment as First Lady.^[35]

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 China itself.^[36] Together with Attorney General Janet Reno, Clinton helped create the Office on Violence Against Women at the Department of Justice.^[35] She was one of the most prominent international figures at the time to speak out against the treatment of Afghan women by the Islamist fundamentalist Taliban that had seized control of Afghanistan.^[37][38] 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.^[39]

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,^[40]which included the flag that inspired the Star Spangled Banner and the First Ladies Historic Site in Canton, Ohio.^[35] She initiated the Millennium Project with monthly lectures that discuss futures studies, one of which became the first live simultaneous webcast from the White House. Clinton also created the first Sculpture Garden, which displayed large contemporary American works of art loaned from museums in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden.^[41]

In the White House, Clinton placed donated handicrafts of contemporary American artisans, such as pottery and glassware, on rotating display in the state rooms. She oversaw the restoration of the Blue Room on the state floor, and the redecoration of the Treaty Room into the presidential study on the second floor. 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 of 2000.

Senate election of 2000

Main article: New York United States Senate election, 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 Rangel of New York, urged Clinton to run for Moynihan's open seat in the United States Senate election of 2000.^[42][43] When she decided to run, Clinton and her husband purchased a home in Chappaqua, New York, north of New York City. She became the first First Lady of the United States to be a candidate for elected office. 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 after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, and Clinton instead faced Rick Lazio, a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives representing New York's 2nd congressional district.

Clinton was accused of carpetbagging by her opponents, as she had never resided in New York nor directly participated in the state's politics prior to this race. In response, Clinton began her campaign by visiting every county in the state, in a "listening tour" of small-group settings. During the campaign, she devoted considerable time in traditionally Republican Upstate New York regions.^[44] 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.^[44] Clinton's opponents continued to focus on the carpetbagging issue throughout the campaign and during debates, but exit polls revealed that more than two-thirds of voters regard it as unimportant.

The contest drew national attention and both candidates were well-funded. By the date of the election, the campaigns of Clinton and Lazio, along with Giuliani's initial effort, had spent a combined $78 million.^[44] Clinton won the election on November 7, 2000, with 55 percent of the vote to Lazio's 43 percent.^[45] She was sworn in as United States Senator on January 3, 2001.

United States Senator

First term

When Clinton entered the United States Senate, she maintained a low public profile as she built relationships with senators from both parties, to avoid the polarizing celebrity she experienced as First Lady.^{[20][46][47][48]} It was reported that when Elizabeth Dole joined the Senate in 2003 under somewhat similar circumstances, she modeled her initial approach after Clinton's,^[49] as did the nationally visible Barack Obama in 2005.^[50]

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.

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, in which the World Trade Center in New York City was destroyed, Clinton sought to obtain funding for the recovery efforts and security improvements in her state. She was audibly cheered and booed in an audience of New York firefighters and police officers during her on-stage appearance at The Concert for New York City on October 20, 2001.^[51] Working with New York's senior senator, Charles Schumer, she helped secure $21.4 billion in funding to provide health tracking for responders at the World Trade Center site, and to create grants for the site's redevelopment.^{[citation needed]} In 2005, Clinton issued two studies that examined the disbursement of federal homeland security funds to local communities and first responders.

As a member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Clinton strongly supported 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.^[52] Clinton voted in favor of the Iraq 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.

After the Iraq War began, Clinton made trips to both Iraq and Afghanistan to visit American troops stationed there, such as the 10th Mountain Division based in Fort Drum, New York. On a visit to Iraq in February 2005, Clinton noted that the insurgency had failed to disrupt the democratic elections held earlier, and that parts of the country were functioning well.^[53] Noting that war deployments are draining regular and reserve forces, she co-introduced legislation to increase the size of the regular United States Army by 80,000 soldiers to ease the strain.^[54] In late 2005, Clinton said that while immediate withdrawal from Iraq would be a mistake, Bush's pledge to stay indefinitely - "until the job is done" - is also misguided, as it gives Iraqis "an open-ended invitation not to take care of themselves." She criticized the administration for making poor decisions in the war, but added that it was more important to solve the problems in Iraq.^[55] This centrist and somewhat vague stance caused frustration among those in the Democratic party who favor immediate withdrawal.^[56] Clinton supported retaining and improving health benefits for veterans, and lobbied against the closure of several military bases.^[57]

Senator Clinton voted against the tax cuts introduced by President Bush, including the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, saying it was fiscally irresponsible to reopen the budget deficit. At the 2000 Democratic National Convention, Clinton had called for maintaining a budget surplus to pay down the national debt for future generations. At a fundraiser in 2004, she told a crowd of financial donors that "Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you" but that "We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."^[58] This statement prompted criticism from conservative commentators who claimed that it advocated income redistribution.^[59]

In Clinton's first term as senator, New York's jobless rate rose 0.7 percent after a nationwide recession.^[60] The state's manufacturing sector was especially beleaguered, losing about 170,000 jobs.^[61] In 2005, Clinton and Senator Lindsey Graham co-sponsored the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition, which provides incentives and rewards for completely domestic American manufacturing companies.^[62] In 2003, Clinton convinced the information technology firm Tata Consultancy Services to open an office in Buffalo, New York,^[63] but some criticized the plan because Tata is also involved in the business of outsourcing.^[64] In 2004, Clinton co-founded and became the co-chair of the Senate India Caucus^[65] with the aid of USINPAC, a political action committee.^[66][67]

Senator Clinton led a bipartisan effort to bring broadband access to rural communities. She co-sponsored the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act, which encourages research and development in the field of nanotechnology.^[68] She included language in an energy bill to provide tax exempt bonding authority for environmentally conscious construction projects, and introduced an amendment that funds job creation to repair, renovate and modernize public schools.

In 2005, Clinton was joined by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who once led the Republican opposition to her husband's administration,^[69] in support of a proposal for incremental universal health care.^[70] She also worked with Bill Frist, the Republican Senate Majority Leader, in support of modernizing medical records with computer technology to reduce human errors, such as misreading prescriptions.^[71]

Clinton generally kept a low profile during the debate over the use of filibusters by Senate Democrats, which prevented some of President Bush's judicial nominations from being confirmed.^[72] She was not part of the "Gang of 14", a bipartisan group of senators who would support cloture but oppose the Republican threat to abolish the filibuster. However, she did vote in favor of cloture along with that group, thereby allowing the nominations to come to a vote. She subsequently voted against three of the nominees, but all were confirmed by the Senate.^[73]

Clinton voted against the confirmation of John Roberts as Chief Justice of the United States, saying "I do not believe that the Judge has presented his views with enough clarity and specificity for me to in good conscience cast a vote on his behalf," but then said she hoped her concerns would prove to be unfounded.^[74] Roberts was confirmed by a solid majority, with half the Senate's Democrats voting for him and half against.^[75] She joined with about half of the Democratic Senators in support of the filibuster against the nomination of Samuel Alito to the United States Supreme Court, and subsequenty voted against his confirmation along with almost all Democratic members of the Senate.^[76] On the Senate floor, Clinton said Alito would "roll back decades of progress and roll over when confronted with an administration too willing to flaunt the rules and looking for a rubber stamp."^[77] Alito was confirmed in a vote split largely along party-lines.

Clinton sought to establish an independent, bipartisan panel patterned after the 9/11 Commission to investigate the response to Hurricane Katrina by the federal, state and local governments, but could not obtain the two-thirds majority needed to overcome procedural hurdles in the Senate.^[78]

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.^[79] 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. Similar bills have been filed in some states such as Michigan and Illinois, but were ruled to be unconstitutional.

In July 2004 and June 2006, Clinton voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment that sought to prohibit same-sex marriage. The proposed constitutional amendment fell well short of passage on both occasions. On June 27, 2006, Clinton voted against the Flag Desecration Amendment, which failed to pass by one vote. Earlier, she attempted to reach a compromise by proposing a legislative ban on flag burning that would not require a constitutional amendment, but it was also voted down.^[80]

Reelection campaign of 2006

Main article: New York United States Senate election, 2006

In November 2004, Clinton announced that she would seek a second term in the United States Senate. The early frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, withdrew from the contest after several months of poor campaign performance.^[81] Clinton easily won the Democratic nomination over opposition from anti-war activist Jonathan Tasini.^[82] 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 7 November with 67 percent of the vote to Spencer's 31 percent,^[83] carrying all but 4 of New York's 62 counties.^[84]

Clinton spent $36 million towards 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.^[85] However, it is possible that Clinton's organizations had disbursed funds to aid other Democratic candidates in the 2006 elections.

Second term

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.^[86] 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.^[87]

In March 2007, in response to the dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy, Clinton called on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign,^[88] and launched an Internet campaign to gain petition signatures towards this end.^[89]

Presidential election of 2008

Main article: Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaign, 2008

Clinton had been mentioned as a potential candidate for United States President since at least October 2002, when an article in The New York Times discussed the possiblilty.^[90] Since then, Clinton had been ranked among the world's most powerful people by Forbes magazine^[91] and Time magazine's Time 100. Opinion polling consistently places her among the most popular statewide officials in New York.^[92] At the same time, Clinton has often been referred to as one of the most polarizing figures in American politics.^[93][94][95]

On January 20 2007, Clinton announced on her Web site the formation of a presidential exploratory committee, with the intention to become a candidate for president in the United States presidential election of 2008. In her announcement, she stated, "I'm in. And I'm in to win."^[1] No woman has ever been nominated by a major party for President of the United States. She is expected to make a formal announcement of candidacy at a later time.

Clinton has begun recruiting a team of advisers and operatives to run her campaign. Patti Solis-Doyle is expected to become the first female Hispanic to manage a presidential campaign.^[96] Mike Henry had managed Tim Kaine's successful campaign for Governor of Virginia in 2005, and coordinated the Democratic advertising efforts for the Senate elections of 2006. Howard Wolfson, a veteran of New York politics, serves as the campaign spokesperson. Evelyn S. Lieberman, who worked for Clinton when she was First Lady and served as Deputy White House Chief of Staff, and is expected to become the chief operating officer of the campaign.^[97]

As of early 2007, Clinton leads the field of candidates competing for the Democratic nomination in opinion polls for the election. Most polls place Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina as Clinton's closest competitors in the early caucus and primary election states.^[98][99] Clinton has set records for early fundraising.^[100]

Political views

Main article: Political views of Hillary Rodham Clinton

In terms of public perception of her views, in a Gallup poll conducted during May 2005, 54% of respondents considered Senator Clinton a liberal, 30% considered her a moderate, and 9% considered her a conservative.^[101]

In 2004, the National Journal's study of roll-call votes assigned Clinton a rating of 30 in the political spectrum, relative to the current Senate, with a rating of 1 being most liberal and a rating of 100 being most conservative.^[102] The 2006 Almanac of American Politics rated her, with most liberal = 100, most conservative = 0, according to a three-dimensional spectrum: Economic = 63, Social = 82, Foreign = 58. Average = 68.^[103] Another analysis by three political scientists found her as likely being the sixth-to-eighth-most liberal Senator.^[104]

Hillary Clinton received an "A" on the Drum Major Institute's 2005 Congressional Scorecard on middle-class issues.^[105]

Controversies

Main article: Hillary Rodham Clinton controversies

Hillary Clinton has been involved in numerous controversies, notably official enquiries into her business dealings in Arkansas and her involvement in the administration of her husband, as well as controversial public statements that attracted media attention.

Writings and recordings

As First Lady of the United States, Clinton published a weekly newspaper column entitled "Talking It Over", focusing on her experiences and those of women, children and families she encountered during her travels around the world.^[5]

In 1996, Clinton presented a vision for the children of America in the book It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us. The book was a New York Times Best Seller, and Clinton received the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 1997 for the book's audio recording. The title refers to an African proverb that states "It takes a village to raise a child".

Other books released by Clinton when she was First Lady include Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids' Letters to the First Pets (1998) and An Invitation to the White House: At Home with History (2000). In 2001, she wrote the foreword to the children's book Beatrice's Goat.

In 2003, Clinton released a 562-page autobiography, Living History. In anticipation of high sales, publisher Simon & Schuster paid Clinton a record advance of $8 million. The book sold more than one million copies in the first month following publication and was translated into several foreign languages.^{[citation needed]} Clinton's audio recording of the book earned a Grammy Award nomination for Best Spoken Word Album.

Like many public figures, Clinton used researchers and ghostwriters to assist her with the creation of her books.

Awards and honors

Main article: Hillary Rodham Clinton awards and honors

Hillary Clinton has been given numerous awards and honors related to her public service.

Electoral history

Further reading

Main article: List of books about Hillary Rodham Clinton

Notes