Hillary Rodham Clinton


Name at birth: Hillary Diane Rodham

The wife of former President Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2000, becoming the first First Lady ever elected to national office. After graduating from Wellesley College in 1969, Hillary Rodham went to Yale Law School, where she met Clinton, a fellow student. She served as a staff attorney for the Children's Defense Fund and was also on the congressional Impeachment Inquiry staff in 1974, at the tail end of Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal. Hillary left Washington for Arkansas, marrying Bill Clinton in 1975.

She was First Lady of Arkansas (the governor's wife) for 12 years, while raising their daughter Chelsea and practicing law. When Bill Clinton won the White House in 1992 she became First Lady of the United States. During her stay in the White House she was often controversial, weathering criticism about everything from her hairstyles to her involvement in public policy, her role in a questionable land deal in Arkansas (the so-called Whitewater affair) and other scandals.

She also endured her husband's much-publicized affair with intern Monica Lewinsky and supported him during the subsequent impeachment hearings. In 2000 the Clintons moved to New York and she was elected to the United States senate, the first former First Lady to be elected to national office. She was re-elected to a second term in 2006. She announced an "exploratory committee" in January of 2007 as the first step in a campaign for the presidency.