Hillary Rodham Clinton

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, a Democrat, represented the state of New York in the Senate from 2001-2009. (map) In June 2008, she ended her presidential campaign and endorsed her rival for the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama. On December 1, 2008, President Elect Obama announced his intention to appoint Clinton his Secretary of State. On January 21, 2009, the US Senate confirmed Clinton as Secretary of State for the Obama administration.

Secretary of State
In December 2008, President Elect Barack Obama announced his intention to appoint Clinton his Secretary of State. Obama called Clinton an "American of tremendous stature who will have my complete confidence; who knows many of the world’s leaders; who will command respect in every capitol; and who will clearly have the ability to advance our interests around the world."

Hillary Clinton currently serves as Secretary of State for the Obama administration. On January 23, 2009, New York Governor David Paterson selected Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand as the replacement for Clinton's vacant Senate seat.

Judith A. McHale, a friend of Clinton's and a fundraiser for her 2008 presidential campaign, serves as Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.

In June 2009, an internal State Department memo identified Farah Pandith as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's "special representative to Muslim communities."

Presidential candidacy

 * See also Hillary Clinton: U.S. presidential election, 2008 and Hillary Clinton: U.S. presidential election, 2008/campaign team

Record, positions and controversies
See Also Attacks Against Hillary Clinton

Iraq War
Clinton voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq in Oct. 2002.

On Dec. 1, 2003, Clinton said that "the next six to seven months are critical" in Iraq.

In late 2005, with domestic debate intensifying over whether and when the U.S. should remove its forces from Iraq, Clinton stated that immediate withdrawal would be "a big mistake", leading to Iraq becoming "a failed state", but that the Bush administration's open-ended commitment to stay in Iraq was also misguided, as it gives Iraqis "an open-ended invitation not to take care of themselves." 

On January 17, 2007, Sen. Clinton announced plans to introduce a bill capping the number of U.S. troops in Iraq at around 130,000. In addition, the bill would cut off funds for Iraqi bodyguards and security services unless they did more to support U.S. troops.

Environmental record
For more information on environmental legislation, see the Energy and Environment Policy Portal

Move to the center?
Following the 2004 election cycle, Clinton began what some saw as a movement to the political center. Liberal media watchdog Media Matters for America has offered evidence that Clinton's positions have remained consistent with her past. In August 2005, the Los Angeles Times reported that Clinton was positioning herself as a centrist ; critics cited her Senate voting record as proof that was not the case.

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

Liberal syndicated columnist Molly Ivins wrote a piece in January 2006 entitled "I will not support Hillary Clinton for president." She summarizes factions within the Democractic party and argues that Clinton is "Republican-lite."

On the war in Afghanistan
Clinton has used her membership on the Armed Services Committee to take a strong position in favor of U.S. military action in Afghanistan

Use of private jet travel
On May 30, 2007, Senator Clinton faced criticism at a campaign stop in Las Vegas, Nevada for accepting rides on a private jet from longtime campaign contributer Vinod Gupta, CEO of the data company InfoUSA Inc. Gupta faced a lawsuit by InfoUSA shareholders for excessive company spending of millions of dollars, including $900,000 spent on Clinton's travel. Clinton claimed she did not violate Senate rules and used the then-current appropriate reimbursement process for travel on private jets.

FY2008 budget
It was revealed in mid-June 2007 that, in the defense authorization bill, Sen. Clinton and Carl Levin (D-Mich.) secured more earmarks than any other senators. Of the bill's $5.4 billion worth of earmarks, Clinton received 26 earmarks worth about $148.4 million and Levin received 45 earmarks worth about $210 million. Earmarks benefit projects within the Senators respective state; monies are never to be utilized by the Senator.

Returned campaign donation
In late August, 2007, it was revealed that a large campaign contributor to Clinton's presidential campaign, Norman Hsu, was wanted in California for failing to appear for sentencing on a 1991 grand theft charge. On August 29, Clinton's campaign said that it would give the $23,000 that Hsu donated to charity, though there were no plans to return any money that Hsu raised from other donors. Conversely, it was Obama returning contributions made by Tony Rezko after it was reported that his contributions came from 'questionable sources'. Beyond the $23,000 he personally donated, he also had helped raise over $1 million for Hillary's campaign, making him one of her top 20 "bundlers." Conversely, Obama returned contributions made by Rezko after it was reported that donations were from 'questionable sources'.

Early Life and Education
Hillary Rodham was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was raised in a Methodist family in Park Ridge, Illinois. Her father, Hugh Ellsworth Rodham, a conservative, was an executive in the textile industry, and her mother, Dorothy Emma Howell Rodham, was a homemaker. She has two brothers, Hugh and Tony.

As a child, Hillary was interested in sports, her church, and her school, a public school in Park Ridge. Throughout her youth, Rodham was fond of sports, including tennis, ice skating, ballet, swimming, volleyball, and softball. She earned many awards as a Brownie and Girl Scout. Prior to graduating from Maine South High School, she attended Maine East High School, where she served as class president, a member of the student council, a member of the debating team, and as a member of the National Honor Society. During her final year of high school (Maine South High School), she received the school's first social science award. Hillary Rodham entered the world of politics in 1964 (at the age of 16) by supporting the presidential bid of Republican Senator Barry Goldwater. . Her parents encouraged her to pursue the career of her choice.

After completing high school in 1965, Rodham enrolled at Wellesley College in Massachusetts where she became active in politics, serving, for a time, as President of the Wellesley College Chapter of the College Republicans. During her junior year at Wellesley in 1968, Rodham was affected by the death of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., whom she had met in person in 1962. After attending the Wellesley in Washington program at the urging of Professor Alan Schechter, her political views became more liberal and she joined the Democratic Party. Rodham graduated in 1969 with departmental honors in Political Science. She became the first student in the history of Wellesley College to deliver a commencement address when she spoke at her own graduation. Her speech received a standing ovation and she was featured in an article published by Life magazine.

In 1969, Rodham entered Yale Law School where she served on the Board of Editors of Yale Review of Law and Social Action and worked with underprivileged children at the Yale-New Haven Hospital. During the summer of 1970, she was awarded a grant to work at the Children's Defense Fund in Cambridge, Massachusetts. During the summer of 1971, she traveled to Washington to work on Senator Walter Mondale's subcommittee on migrant workers, researching migrant problems in housing, sanitation, health and education. For the summer of 1972, Rodham worked in the western states for the Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern's campaign. During her second year in law school, 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 New Haven Hospital and worked at the city Legal Services, providing free legal service to the poor. She received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Yale in 1973, having written her widely recognized thesis on the rights of children, and began a year of post-graduate study on children and medicine at the Yale Child Study Center.

Marriage, family, lawyer and First Lady of Arkansas
During her post-graduate study, Rodham served as staff attorney for the Children's Defense Fund. She joined the presidential impeachment inquiry staff advising the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate Scandal. After President Richard M. Nixon resigned in August of 1974, Rodham became a faculty member (one of only two women in the faculty) at the University of Arkansas Law School, located in Fayetteville, where her Yale Law School classmate and boyfriend Bill Clinton was teaching as well.

In 1975 Rodham and Clinton were married and moved to Little Rock, Arkansas. In 1976, Hillary Rodham joined the Rose Law Firm. In 1979, she became the first woman to be made a full partner of Rose Law Firm. President Jimmy Carter appointed Rodham to the board of the Legal Services Corporation in 1978.

In 1978, with the election of her husband as governor of Arkansas, Rodham became Arkansas's First Lady, her title for a total of 12 years. On February 27, 1980, Rodham gave birth to Chelsea, their only child. In 1980, Bill Clinton was defeated in his re-election bid for governor and the couple left the statehouse. In February 1982, Bill Clinton announced his bid to regain the office, which would be successful; at the same time, Rodham began using the name Hillary Rodham Clinton. [Living History p. 93]

As first lady, Clinton chaired the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee, where she successfully fought (against some opposition) for improved testing standards of new teachers. She also chaired the Rural Health Advisory Committee and introduced a pioneering program called Arkansas' Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youth, which trains parents to work with their children in preschool preparedness and literacy. Clinton was named Arkansas Woman of the Year in 1983 and Arkansas Mother of the Year in 1984.

Throughout her time as first lady, Clinton continued to practice law with the Rose Law Firm. In 1988 and 1991 National Law Journal named Clinton one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America.

Clinton 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. From 1985 to 1992, Clinton served on the Board of Directors for both TCBY ("The Country's Best Yogurt") and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

First Lady of the United States
After Bill Clinton was elected to the White House in 1992, Hillary Rodham Clinton became the First Lady of the United States in 1993. She was the first First Lady to hold a post-graduate degree and the first to have her own successful professional career. She is regarded as the most openly empowered presidential wife in American history other than Eleanor Roosevelt. 

In 1993 the President appointed his wife to head the Task Force on National Health Care Reform. The recommendation of this task force, commonly called the Clinton health care plan and nicknamed "Hillarycare" by its opponents, failed to gain enough support to come to a floor vote in either house of Congress, although both had Democratic majorities, and was abandoned in September, 1994. In her Living History memoirs, Clinton acknowledged that her political inexperience contributed to the defeat, but also said that many other factors were responsible as well. A decade later, "Hillarycare" would still be used as a label, sometimes pejoratively, for plans perceived as implementing universal health care. At the time, Republicans used its unpopularity as a campaign issue in the 1994 midterm elections which saw a net Republican gain of 53 seats in the House election and 7 in the Senate election.

At the time, some critics called it inappropriate for a First Lady to play a central role in matters of public policy. Supporters, by contrast, argued that Clinton was no different than other White House advisors and that furthermore, voters were well aware that she would play an active role in her husband's Presidency. Indeed, during the campaign Bill Clinton had stated that voting for him would get "two for the price of one." This remark led to the (inaccurate) notion that the two were acting as "co-Presidents", sometimes nicknamed "Billary".

As first lady, Clinton won many admirers for her staunch support for women's rights around the world and her commitment to children's issues. She initiated the Children's Health Insurance Program in 1997, a federal effort that provided state support for those children whose parents were unable to provide them with health coverage. She also successfully sought to increase the research funding for illnesses such as prostate cancer and childhood asthma at the National Institutes of Health. The First Lady worked to solve the mystery behind the illnesses that were affecting veterans of the Gulf War. She initiated and shepherded the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, which she regarded as her greatest accomplishment as First Lady.

Clinton hosted numerous White House conferences that related to children's health, including early childhood development and school violence. She fought for nationwide immunization against childhood illnesses and supported an annual drive to encourage older women to seek a mammogram to prevent breast cancer, coverage of the cost being provided by Medicare. With Attorney General Janet Reno, Clinton helped to create the Department of Justice's Violence Against Women office. She was one of the few international figures at the time who spoke out against the treatment of Afghani women by Islamist fundamentalist Taliban that had seized control of Afghanistan. One of the programs she helped create was Vital Voices, a U.S.-sponsored initiative to promote the participation of international women in their nation's political process.

Clinton performed many less political activities in her role as First Lady. With a lifelong interest in regional American history, she initiated the Save America's Treasures program, a national effort that matched federal funds to private donations to rescue from deterioration and neglect, or restore to completion many iconic historic items and sites, including the flag that inspired the Star Spangled Banner, and the National First Ladies Historic Site in Canton, Ohio. Clinton initiated the Millennium Project with monthly lectures that considered both America's past and forecasted its future. One of these lectures 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 on a rotating basis.

In the White House, Clinton placed the donated handicrafts (pottery, glassware, etc.) of contemporary American artisans 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 President's study on the second floor. In a unique venue of large white tents on the South Lawn that could accommodate several thousand guests, Clinton hosted many large events such as a St. Patrick's Day reception, a state dinner for visiting Chinese dignitaries, and a contemporary music concert that raised funds for music education in the public schools. For all the foods served in the White House, Clinton hired a chef whose expertise was in American regional cooking. She hosted a massive New Year's Eve party on the turning of the twentieth century into the twenty-first century, as well as a state dinner honoring the November 2000 bicentennial of the White House, which gathered more former Presidents and First Ladies together in the mansion than had ever been present at any other time in its history.

The 2000 Senate race
When long-time New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan announced his retirement, prominent Democratic politicians and advisors, including Charlie Rangel, urged Clinton to run for the New York Senate seat in the U.S. Senate, 2000, elections. When she chose to run, the Clintons 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. She was initially expected to face New York City's Mayor Rudy Giuliani, but Giuliani withdrew after being diagnosed with prostate cancer and after developments in his personal life attracted negative publicity. Instead, Clinton faced a lesser-known candidate, Rick Lazio, who was a Congressman representing Suffolk County on Long Island. The contest drew considerable national attention and both candidates were well-funded. By the end of the race, Democrat Clinton and Republicans Lazio and Giuliani had spent a combined $78 million.

While Clinton had a solid base of support in New York City, candidates and observers expected the race to be decided in upstate New York where 45 percent of the state's voters live. During the campaign, Clinton vowed to improve the economic picture in upstate New York, promising that her plan would deliver 200,000 New York jobs over six years. Her plan included specific tax credits with the purpose of rewarding job creation and encouraging business investment, especially in the high-tech sector. She called for targeted personal tax cuts for college tuition and long-term care. Clinton began her campaign by visiting every county in the state, in a "listening tour" of small-group settings. During the race, she spent considerable time in traditionally Republican upstate regions.

Clinton faced charges of carpetbagging since she had never resided in the State of New York nor directly participated in state politics prior to her Senate race. Opponents made the carpetbagging issue a focal point throughout the race and during debates. Her supporters pointed out that the state was receptive to national leaders, such as Robert F. Kennedy who was elected to the Senate in 1964 despite similar accusations. In the end, according to exit polls conducted in the race, more than two-thirds of the voters dismissed the carpetbagging issue as unimportant.

Clinton won the election on November 7, 2000, with 55% of the vote to Lazio's 43%. In comparison with other results, this 12% margin was smaller than Al Gore's 25% margin over George W. Bush in the state Presidential contest, was slightly larger than the 10% margin by which fellow New York senator Charles Schumer defeated incumbent Republican Al D'Amato in the hotly contested 1998 race, but was considerably smaller than the 47% margin by which Senator Schumer won reelection in 2004 against little-known Republican challenger Howard Mills. The victory of a Democrat in the Senate election was not assured, because in recent decades the Republicans had won about half the elections for governor and senator.

U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton
When Clinton joined the Senate, she was widely reported to have kept a low public profile and learned the ways of the institution while building relationships with senators from both sides of the aisle, thus countering her polarizing celebrity.   Indeed when Elizabeth Dole (R-North Carolina) joined the Senate in 2003 in somewhat similar circumstances, she modeled her initial approach after Clinton's, as did the nationally visible Barack Obama (D-Illinois) in 2005. 

Senator Clinton has made homeland security one of her top issues following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in downtown New York City, especially regarding obtaining funding for recovery from the attacks and for improving security capabilities in the New York City area. 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. Senator Clinton worked with Senator Schumer to secure $21.4 billion in funding to assist clean up and recovery, to provide health tracking for first responders and volunteers at Ground Zero, and to create grants for redevelopment. In 2005, Clinton issued two studies that examined the disbursement of federal homeland security funds to local communities and first responders.

Clinton has used her membership on the Armed Services Committee to take a strong position in favor of U.S. military action in Afghanistan – with the additional benefit that it greatly improved the lives of women in that country, who had suffered terribly under the rule of the Taliban – and a somewhat weaker position regarding action in Iraq (her vote in support of the Iraq War Resolution was criticized for being equivocal). Senator Clinton has visited U.S. forces (such as the Fort Drum, New York-based 10th Mountain Division) in both countries. In February 2005 she stated that much of Iraq was functioning well, elections in Iraq had succeeded, and that the insurgency there was failing. In July 2005 she co-introduced legislation to increase the size of the regular United States Army by 80,000 soldiers. By late 2005, with domestic debate intensifying over whether and when the U.S. should remove its forces from Iraq, Clinton stated that immediate withdrawal would be "a big mistake", leading to Iraq becoming "a failed state", but that the Bush administration's open-ended commitment to stay in Iraq was also misguided, as it gives Iraqis "an open-ended invitation not to take care of themselves."  This centrist and somewhat vague stance caused frustration among the Democratic party's anti-war activists, who have even occasionally protested outside Clinton fundraisers.

Senator Clinton also became a national advocate for retaining and improving health and other benefits for veterans. By the end of 2005, her standing among the military community was much higher than it had been during her days as First Lady. 

Senator Clinton was a vocal opponent of the Bush Administration's tax cuts.

Clinton has pressed for education, labor, and technology infrastructure programs to assist economic development in upstate New York and similar regions. For example, in 2003, Clinton solicited offshoring firm Tata Consultancy Services to set up shop in economically beleaguered Buffalo, New York. In 2004, Clinton co-founded and became the co-chair of the U.S. Senate India Caucus with the encouragement and aid of the USINPAC Political Action Committee.

In 2005, Clinton co-sponsored with Senator Lindsey Graham the AMTAC proposal regarding incentives and rewards for completely domestic American manufacturing companies. As an advocate for her state, Senator Clinton led a bipartisan effort to bring broadband access to rural communities; co-sponsored the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act; included language in the Energy Bill to provide tax exempt bonding authority for environmentally conscious construction projects; and introduced an amendment calling for funding of new job creation to repair, renovate and modernize public schools.

In May 2005, Senator Clinton joined forces with her former adversary, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, on a proposal for incremental universal health care. In June, 2005, Senator Clinton united with Senator Bill Frist to push for the modernization of medical records, claiming that thousands of deaths caused by medical mistakes, such as misreading prescriptions, can be prevented by greater reliance on computer technology.

In July 2005, Senator 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. 

In 2005, during the intense debate over the filibustering of some of President George W. Bush's federal judicial nominations, Senator Clinton generally kept a low profile. She was not part of the "Gang of 14" that resolved the dispute short of the "nuclear option", but she did vote to endorse that resolution and end debate on the nominations, thereby allowing the nominations to come to a vote. She subsequently voted against three of the nominees, but all were confirmed. 

Regarding the Supreme Court nomination of John Roberts, in September 2005, Clinton voted against his confirmation, 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 that she hoped her concerns would be unfounded. Roberts was confirmed by a solid majority, with half the Senate's Democrats voting for him and half against. 

Regarding the Supreme Court nomination of Samuel Alito, in January and February 2006, Clinton not only joined almost all Senate Democrats in voting against his confirmation, but also joined about half the Democrats in supporting a filibuster against bringing his nomination to a vote, saying "He would roll back decades of progress, and roll over when confronted with an administration too willing to play fast and loose with the rules." That effort failed and Alito was confirmed on a largely party-line vote.

Clinton sought to establish an independent, bipartisan panel patterned after the 9/11 Commission to investigate what went wrong with federal, state and local governments' response to Hurricane Katrina. She failed to win over a two-thirds majority needed to overcome procedural hurdles in the Senate rules. 

On November 29, 2005, Clinton, together with Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh introduced the Family Entertainment Protection Act. The act is intended to protect children from inappropriate content found in video games. Similar bills have been filed in some U.S. states such as Michigan and Illinois, but were ruled to be unconstitutional.

Hillary Clinton recieved an "A" on the Drum Major Institute's2005 Congressional Scorecard on middle-class issues.

Following a May 2007 Supreme Court decision limiting workers' rights to sue for federal wage discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Civil Rights Act of 1991, Clinton, along with Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), and Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), introduced legislation to clarify congressional intent on the issue in an effort to "restore full protection against wage discrimination."

Issues

 * September 11 attacks - Clinton has worked for funding to improve security capabilities in the New York City area and provide grants for rebuilding ground zero.
 * Advocated for retaining and improving health and other benefits for veterans.
 * Opposed the Bush Administration's tax cuts.
 * Pressed for economic development assistance in upstate New York.
 * Clinton co-founded and became the co-chair of the U.S. Senate India Caucus with the encouragement and aid of the USINPAC Political Action Committee.
 * In 2005, co-sponsored with Senator Lindsey Graham the AMTAC proposal regarding incentives and rewards for completely domestic American manufacturing companies.
 * In May 2005, Clinton joined forces with House Speaker Newt Gingrich, on a proposal for incremental universal health care.
 * In June, 2005, Senator Clinton united with Senator Bill Frist to push for the modernization of medical records..
 * In 2006, Clinton, along with Senators Edward M. Kennedy, Jim Jeffords, Patrick Leahy, Tom Harkin, and Barack Obama authored the Standing with Minimum Wage Earners Act of 2006.  This bill would change the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1983 by keeping the wage increase for Congressional members at the same pace as the increase of the federal minimum wage.

The 2006 Senate race
Clinton announced in November 2004 that she would seek a second term in the Senate in the 2006 New York election for Senator. The two most prominent Republicans contemplating a challenge to Senator Clinton were lawyer Ed Cox (the son-in-law of former President Richard M. Nixon) and Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro. On October 14, 2005, New York Governor George Pataki formally endorsed Pirro, causing Cox to drop out of the race. However, Pirro trailed Clinton badly in fund-raising and in polls, and under pressure from state party officials dropped out of the race herself on December 21, 2005, leaving the Republicans without a well-known candidate. Possible Republican nominees now include Cox; former Yonkers, New York, mayor John Spencer; and K. T. (Kathleen Troia) McFarland, who was a Pentagon spokeswoman under President Ronald Reagan.

Clinton also faces opposition for the Democratic party nomination for Senate; it comes from the anti-war base of her own party that has become increasingly frustrated with her support for the Iraq War. In October 2005 New Paltz firefighter and activist Steven Greenfield announced he would run against her. Then on December 6, 2005, labor advocate Jonathan Tasini announced that he would run against her as well, calling for immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, universal health care and what he terms "New Rules For the Economy," a more labor-centric as opposed to the corporate-centric approach to economic matters espoused by Clinton. Tasini is supported by anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, who had in October said, "I will resist her candidacy with every bit of my power and strength...I will not make the mistake of supporting another pro-war Democrat for president again." 

Despite her rocky relationship with the pharmaceutical industry in the past, Clinton has been very successful at garnering contributions from the industry during her Senatorial reelection campaign. As of July 12, 2006, she raised more money from pharmaceuticals than any other candidate with the exception of Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.). At this point, the total figure in contributions from this sector stood at $150,600. Some political analysts attribute the charity of pharmaceuticals to two factors. First, Clinton has moderated her positions over the past several years. She has proposed legislation to increase Medicare payments or stave off cuts in payments to doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, managed care companies and home health agencies. In addition, she has introduced a bill to lower the cost of malpractice insurance for doctors who disclose medical errors to patients. With strong support from the industry, she has also pushed legislation to promote the adoption of health information technology. Secondly, pharmaceutical companies believe that Clinton will likely be the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, and wish to get on her good side now. 

On August 21, Kathleen Troia McFarland, a Republican running for the GOP nomination, temporarily suspended campaigning activities after her 16-year-old daughter was arrested and charged with shoplifting in Suffolk County, New York. She added, however, that she would not withdraw from the race and would compete in the Sept. 12 primary against John Spencer, the former mayor of Yonkers, NY. 

Clinton retained her seat, capturing 67% of the vote. 

2008 presidential bid
On January 20, 2007, Clinton announced that she would establish an exploratory committee to consider a run for president in 2008. The announcement came on her website, which featured a headline stating, "I'm in." 

In January 2007, Clinton declared that she would become the first candidate since the public financing program's inception in 1976 to forgo public funds during both the primary and general election processes, citing spending limitations as a rationale.

Clinton's writings and recordings
The 1996 book, It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us became a best-seller, and she received the 1997 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for her recording of it. Clinton's book references the African proverb that "it takes a village to raise a child."

Other books released by Clinton as First Lady include An Invitation to the White House: At Home with History (2000) and Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids' Letters to the First Pets (1998).

Clinton's memoirs, as the 562-page book Living History, were released in 2003. The book sold more than one million copies in the first month following publication. Her recording in that year of Living History earned her a second Grammy nomination in the Best Spoken Word Album category.

Money in politics
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Boards and other Affiliations
From 1985 to 1992, Clinton served on the Board of Directors for both TCBY ("The Country's Best Yogurt") and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
 * Honorary Chair, Vital Voices Global Partnership

Twitter
 Hillary Clinton posts on Twitter at http://twitter.com/hillaryclinton/

Latest posts: http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/965911.rss|title=none| max=3| short See all the members of Congress who Twitter

SourceWatch resources

 * Judith A. McHale‎
 * Obama administration

Resources

 * Official website
 * Senate Campaign website
 * HillPAC - Hillary's Leadership PAC
 * Just Hillary - News archive
 * Hillary Rodham Clinton 2008 Discussion Board
 * Unofficial Hillary Clinton for President 2008 site
 * A Detailed Timeline of the Healthcare Debate portrayed in The System PBS
 * "Thomas (Library of Congress)", website.
 * Open Secrets - 2006 congressional races database
 * See how you compare to Hillary Clinton
 * Christina Macy

Local blogs and discussion sites

 * Simply Left Behind
 * Jack Bog's Blog
 * Vote Hillary

Profiles and Bios

 * Biography of First Lady Clinton
 * Clinton's positions in 2000 Senate Race

Unofficial Web Sites

 * FriendsOfHillary.com - Hillary Rodham Clinton 2006 Reelection Campaign website.
 * News about Hillary Rodham Clinton, 100towatch.com.
 * Official Draft Hillary Clinton for President Campaign/Hillary Clinton Forum.
 * The Hillary Clinton Quarterly website.
 * The "Unofficial" Hillary Clinton, zpub.com.
 * www.votehillary.org/"Hillary Clinton for President 2008" website.

Sites Opposing Clinton / Hostile Web Sites

 * blogsagainsthillary.com.
 * HillCAP.org.
 * Hillaryindex.com.
 * The Hillary Project website.
 * Rotten.com's Satirical Biography
 * StopHerNow.com.
 * STOP Hillary PAC.com.

Article by Clinton

 * Abortion debate shuns prevention by Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid, Albany Times-Union, April 18, 2006.

Statements and Speeches

 * Floor Speech of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on S.J. Res. 45, A Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq
 * Future Role of United Nations within the Framework of Global Security