The next Presidential election is not until November of 2016. That’s almost two years away, but the American public is eager to look ahead. Already, potential candidates for the Presidential Election are making their announcements, feeling out voters, and raising funds to campaign. New Hampshire and Iowa are getting ready for the inevitable swarm of campaigning that comes in the months before the primaries.
In the Republican Party, there are a number of names being thrown around: Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Rick Perry… but in the Democratic Party, all eyes are on one woman: Former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Hillary Rodham was born on October 26, 1947. She was born in raised in Illinois, just outside of Chicago, in a conservative family. At age thirteen, while volunteering to help canvas Chicago’s South Side, Hillary Rodham found evidence of electoral fraud against Republican candidate Richard Nixon.
Rodham attended Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, as a political science major, where she was very active politically. Initially a member of the Wellesley Young Republicans, she later changed her views regarding the Civil Rights movement and Vietnam War. She graduated in 1969, with a Bachelor of Arts degree with departmental honors in political science, and became the first student in Wellesley College history to deliver the commencement address.
Following her graduation, Rodham went to Yale Law School, where she continued to be active politically and where she met fellow law student Bill Clinton. After a brief time in Washington, D.C., during which she served on the impeachment inquiry staff advising on the Watergate scandal, Rodham followed Clinton to Arkansas, where they were married in 1975. Rodham continued to work as a lawyer.
Bill Clinton became the Governor of Arkansas in 1979, and a year later the Clintons had a daughter, Chelsea. Bill Clinton lost the governorship in 1980, but won it back in 1982. While First Lady of Arkansas, Mrs. Clinton continued to practice law, and briefly considered running for Governor of Arkansas herself.
In 1992, Clinton chose not to run for re-election in Arkansas but instead ran for the Presidency. He was supported by Hillary, and told the public that they were getting “two for the price of one” by electing him. When he won the election, Hillary took a prominent role as First Lady, especially pushing health care as her main initiative.
In 2000, Hillary Clinton was urged to run for the now vacant New York Senate seat. She was a popular candidate, going on “listening tours” of each county, and defeated Republican Rick Lazio to win the seat. As a Senator, she took a prominent role, advocating for the victims and heroes of 9/11, voting in favor of the Iraq War, and against the Bush tax cuts. Voters approved of her record, because she was re-elected in 2006.
In 2008, Hillary was the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency. All eyes were on her, and she was expected to win. It was one of the closest nominations in history, but in the end, Illinois Senator Barack Obama came up and took the front-running spot, winning the nomination and then the Presidency. In his first term, Hillary Clinton served as President Obama’s Secretary of State.
Now, going into the 2016 Presidential Election, all eyes are on Hillary again for the Democratic nomination. Like in 2008, she’s the front-runner long before the race begins. If no “Barack Obama” comes up and steals the election from her fingertips, we might have another Clinton in the White House.