election name	Democratic presidential primaries, 2008
country	United States
type	presidential
ongoing	no
previous election	Democratic Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2004
previous year	2004
next election	Democratic Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2012
next year	2012
election date	January 3, 2008 to June 3, 2008
image1
nominee1	Barack Obama
party1	Democratic Party (United States)
home state1	Illinois
popular vote1	18,011,877
percentage1	47.43%
states carried1	29+DC+DA+GU+TC+VI
image2
nominee2	Hillary Clinton
party2	Democratic Party (United States)
home state2	New York
popular vote2	18,223,120
percentage2	47.98%
states carried2	21+PR+AS
map image	Democratic presidential primary, 2008.svg
map size	330px
map caption	Democratic Primary Results (popular vote). Purple denotes an Obama win and gold a Clinton win.
title	Democratic presidential candidate
before election	John Kerry
posttitle	Democratic presidential candidate-elect
after election	Barack Obama }}

The 2008 Democratic presidential primaries were the selection process by which voters of the Democratic Party chose its nominee for President of the United States in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. The nominee was selected through a series of primary elections and caucuses culminating in the 2008 Democratic National Convention held from Monday, August 25, through Thursday, August 28, 2008, in Denver, Colorado.

To secure the nomination at the convention, a candidate needed to receive at least 2,117 votes from delegates—a simple majority of the 4,233 delegate votes, including half-votes from American Samoa, Guam, the United States Virgin Islands, and Democrats Abroad. However, this total included votes from so-called superdelegates (party leaders and elected officials), and the race was complicated by a controversy over the scheduling of the Michigan and Florida state primaries, which had been scheduled earlier than party rules permitted. Due to a close race between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, the contest remained competitive for longer than expected, and neither candidate received enough delegates from state primary races and caucuses to achieve a majority without superdelegate votes.

Although Obama led Clinton in delegates won through state contests, Clinton claimed the popular vote lead as she had more actual votes from the state contests. However, this total included Michigan and Florida, which neither Clinton nor Obama contested due to the Democratic National Committee's penalization of those states for violating primary rules. Obama received enough superdelegate endorsements on June 3 to claim that he had secured the simple majority of delegates necessary to win the nomination, and Clinton conceded the nomination four days later. Obama was officially recognized as the Democratic nominee at the August convention. He went on to win the general election, and became the 44th President of the United States on January 20, 2009.

__TOC__

Candidates and results

Notes for the following table:

Delegate counts:

*The pledged delegate estimates come from the sum of the ''Current estimate'' columns for the states listed in the ''Chronicle'' section later in this article

The source for superdelegate estimates is the 2008 Democratic Convention Watch blog. Superdelegate endorsements were frozen on June 7, the date of Clinton's concession speech.

Ordering:

*The candidates are ordered by pledged delegate count and then alphabetically by last name

*To re-sort this table, click on the double-arrow symbol (File:Sort none.gif) at the top of a column

{|class="wikitable" class="sortable wikitable" style="margin-left:0.5em; text-align:center" !Candidate !class="unsortable"|Most recent office heldat the end of the primaries !Pledged DelegateVote Estimate !SuperdelegateVote Estimate !Total DelegateVote Estimate !Campaign Status !class="unsortable"|Links |- |100px|Barack ObamaObama, BarackBarack Obama |U.S. Senator,Illinois |1,828½51% |47866% |2,306½54% |NomineeSurpassed by estimationthe 2,208 delegate votesneeded for a majority,June 3, 2008. |campaign articlecampaign website |-bgcolor=#e0e0e0 |100px|Hillary ClintonClinton, HillaryHillary Clinton |U.S. Senator,New York |1,726½49% |246½34% |1,97346% |Suspended,June 7, 2008.Endorsed Obama,June 7, 2008. |campaign articlecampaign website |-bgcolor=#e0e0e0 |100px|John EdwardsEdwards, JohnJohn Edwards |Former U.S. SenatorNorth Carolina |4½<1% |0  |4½<1% |Suspended,January 30, 2008.Endorsed Obama,May 14, 2008. |campaign articlecampaign website |-bgcolor=#e0e0e0 |100px|Joe BidenBiden, JoeJoe Biden |U.S. Senator,Delaware |0 |0 |0 |Withdrew,January 3, 2008.Endorsed Obama,June 22, 2008.Named VP candidate,August 23, 2008. |campaign articlecampaign website |-bgcolor=#e0e0e0 |100px|Chris DoddDodd, ChristopherChris Dodd |U.S. Senator,Connecticut |0 |0 |0 |Withdrew,January 3, 2008.Endorsed Obama,February 26, 2008. |campaign articlecampaign website |- |-bgcolor=#e0e0e0 |100px|Mike GravelGravel, MikeMike Gravel |Former U.S. Senator,Alaska |0 |0 |0 |Endorsed Jesse Johnson,March 13, 2008.Joined Libertarian Party,March 25, 2008. |campaign articlecampaign website |-bgcolor=#e0e0e0 |100px|Dennis KucinichKucinich, DennisDennis Kucinich |U.S. Representative,Ohio |0 |0 |0 |Withdrew,January 23, 2008.Endorsed ObamaAugust 26, 2008. |campaign articlecampaign website |-bgcolor=#e0e0e0 |100px|Bill RichardsonRichardson, BillBill Richardson |Governor,New Mexico |0 |0 |0 |Withdrew,January 10, 2008.Endorsed Obama,March 21, 2008. |campaign articlecampaign website |}

Delegate system

Delegates are the people who decided the nomination at the Democratic National Convention. Delegates from fifty US states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico had a single vote each, while delegates from American Samoa, the Virgin Islands, Guam and Democrats Abroad, as well as the states of Florida and Michigan, which contravened the schedule, had half a vote each. Thus, the total number of delegates was slightly higher than the total number of available delegate votes (4,049). [now updated to 4,233 with FL-MI delegations]

Pledged delegates

Democratic candidates campaign for the nomination in a series of primary elections and caucus events. The results from these primaries and caucuses determine the number of pledged delegates committed to vote for each candidate at the Democratic National Convention. Pledged delegates are allocated to each of the fifty US states following two main criteria: (1) the proportion of votes each state gave to the Democratic candidate in the last three presidential elections, and (2) the percentage of votes each state has in the United States Electoral College. In addition, fixed numbers of delegates are allocated to the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Democrats Abroad under the party's ''Delegate Selection Rules for the 2008 Democratic National Convention''. Pledged delegates reflect the preferences of voters but are not actually legally bound to vote for the candidate they represent. However, since candidates may remove delegates who they feel may be disloyal, the delegates generally vote as pledged. In 2008, a total of 3,253 pledged delegate votes will be awarded through the primaries and caucuses.

Superdelegates

Superdelegate votes are given equal weight to the votes of pledged delegates. Superdelegates are members of the United States House of Representatives and Senate, state and territorial governors, members of the Democratic National Committee, distinguished party leaders, and add-on delegates selected by the state parties. They represented almost 20 percent of the total 4,233 delegates.

The number and composition of superdelegates had the potential to change right up to the start of the Democratic National Convention. The total number of superdelegate votes at the start of the primary season in October 2007 stood at 850. Various events such as deaths, elections, and disqualifications a bearing on the final number.

While officially uncommitted until the convention, the superdelegates may publicly endorse or commit to a candidate at any time. The presidential candidates compete heavily for these commitments. News organizations survey the superdelegates periodically throughout the election season and try to calculate how many have committed to each of the candidates. The media often include these superdelegate estimates in their reporting on the race, leading to differing delegate counts from various news sources.

Delegate selection rules

Under the Democratic Party's ''Delegate Selection Rules for the 2008 Democratic National Convention'', delegates are awarded by proportional representation, with a minimum 15 percent threshold required to receive delegates. Each state party is required to publish its own state level delegate selection plan, indicating how the state will select delegates at the congressional and statewide level, how the delegation will implement the party's affirmative action policy, and how the delegation will ensure an equal balance between women and men. Those plans were adopted at state conventions and forwarded to the national party in mid-2007.

In most state caucuses, the viability threshold must be met at each level in the process, from the precinct level upwards. This puts enormous pressure on the remaining candidates to gain the support of voters whose chosen candidates fall below the 15 percent mark. The focus on viability is designed to weed out small, divisive factions from gaining delegates to disrupt the national convention. However, this can result in candidates gaining viability in some precincts but not in others, and a complicated "caucus math" is required to allocate delegates to the county and state conventions for each precinct. In the primaries, the viability threshold is set based on statewide and congressional district votes. At-large and PLEO (Party Leaders and Elected Officials) delegates are allocated based on statewide votes, while district-level delegates are allocated by district votes.

Reporting delegate totals

There is no easy answer to the question, ''What's the current count?'' Each of the major news organizations keeps a count of delegate votes, while the campaigns keep their own numbers. Rarely do these totals coincide. Some online sources use an aggregate of sources, leading to even more confusion in delegate vote totals. The actual result may not be known until the votes are cast at the Democratic National Convention.

There are several reasons for this discrepancy. First, some news sources include only pledged delegates in their total count, while others include superdelegates. Second, estimates of superdelegate votes are unreliable and are subject to change. Third, pledged delegates in many states are selected at county or state conventions late in the process; thus, the initial primary and caucus results provide only a projection of pledged delegates, highlighted by the discrepancies with the Iowa county convention results. Fourth, in the days after an election, results in individual precincts may be delayed, and news organizations may project the winners of those precincts based on statistical analysis or may wait for confirmed results. The Democratic nominating process is a complex system that has evolved over time, and in close races, it can be difficult under the current system to know who is leading in the delegate count.

This article uses pledged delegate estimates from the respective Wikipedia articles of each state primary or caucus. Reliable sources appropriate to each state's individual process are found in those articles. The ''Not Yet Assigned'' columns in the tables below reflect pledged delegates that these sources have not yet allocated to any candidates. For superdelegate vote estimates, this article uses the Democratic Convention Watch blog. A periodically updated article on the blog also provides a comparison of the delegate totals from several different sources (CBS, CNN, NBC, Associated Press, and The Green Papers).

Chronicle

Notes for the tables in this section:

''Votes to the Convention'' column:

The source for delegation sizes is the Democratic National Committee's official ''Call for the 2008 Democratic National Convention''. Specific sources are present for Florida and Michigan. Very recent changes not already in the official source are indicated by the footnotes.

''Pledged Delegate Votes Estimate'' column:

*The source is each state's primary or caucus article. Click on the ''Specific Election (link)'' column to see the sources used in those articles.

*The candidate with the highest pledged delegate vote is highlighted. In some cases, this may be different from the winner of the popular vote.

Early campaigning

The race for the 2008 presidential nomination began in earnest after the 2006 midterm elections. Between November 2006 and February 2007, eight major candidates opened their campaigns-Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, and Tom Vilsack-joining Mike Gravel, who had announced his candidacy in April 2006. Potential candidates John Kerry, Al Gore, Russ Feingold, Evan Bayh, Tom Daschle, Wesley Clark, Mark Warner, and Al Sharpton reportedly considered running but ultimately declined to seek the nomination. Vilsack dropped out in February 2007.

In the first three months of 2007, Clinton and Obama raised more than $20 million each and Edwards raised more than $12 million. The three candidates quickly became the frontrunners for the nomination, a status they held all the way through the end of 2007.

On November 21, Obama announced that Oprah Winfrey would be campaigning for him in the early primary states, setting off speculation that, although celebrity endorsements typically have little effect on voter opinions, Winfrey's participation would supply Obama with a large, receptive audience. As word spread that Oprah's first appearance would be in Iowa, polls released in early December revealed Obama taking the lead in that decisive state. Then, on December 8, Oprah kicked-off a three-state tour supporting Obama's campaign, where she drew record-setting crowds in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, and was described as "more cogent, more effective, more convincing" than anyone on the campaign trail. The Oprah-Obama tour dominated political news headlines and cast doubts over Clinton's ability to recover her recently-lost lead in Iowa caucus polls. A poll released less than two weeks after Winfrey campaigned found Obama achieving more popularity in Iowa than ever before recorded. Two economists would later estimate that Winfrey's endorsement added more than one million votes to Obama's total in the Democratic primaries, and that without it, Clinton would have received more votes.

At the end of the year, December 31, Clinton held a substantial lead in superdelegates, and she was leading in the national polls with 42% of likely voters, over Obama, 23%, and Edwards, 16%. However, Edwards and Obama remained close in state polls for the early contests, including the Iowa caucuses, where the final polling average had Obama leading narrowly, 31%, over Clinton, 30%, Edwards, 26%, Biden, 5%, and Richardson, 5%.

January 2008

Following tradition, the 2008 primary calendar began with the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary. The Nevada caucus and the South Carolina primary were the third and fourth contests sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee. Under the national committee's rules, no state was allowed to hold primaries or caucuses before February 5 with the exceptions of these four states. Michigan and Florida also held early primaries, but as the contests were unsanctioned, the results were not recognized by the national committee until a political compromise was reached four months later.

The following table shows the pledged delegate votes awarded in the first four contests recognized by the DNC. {|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" |- !rowspan="2" colspan="2" style="width:20em"|Details !rowspan="2" colspan="3" style="width:20em"|Delegate Votes to the Convention !colspan="7"|Pledged Delegate Vote Count |- !colspan="3" style="width:15em"|Election Result !rowspan="2"|ChangeNotes !colspan="3" style="width:15em"|Current Estimate |- !style="width:6em"|Date !Election link !Pledged !Super !Total !Obama !Clinton !Edwards !Obama !Clinton !Edwards |- |January 3 |Iowa caucuses |45 |12 |57 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|16 |15 |14 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|28 |14 |3 |- |January 8 |New Hampshire primary |22 |8 |30 |9 |9 |4 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|13 |9 |0 |- |January 19 |Nevada caucuses |25 |9 |34 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|13 |12 |0 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|14 |11 |0 |- |January 26 |South Carolina primary |45 |9 |54 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|25 |12 |8 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|33 |12 |0 |- | - |TOTAL |137 |38 |175 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|63 |48 |26 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|88 |46 |3 |}

Obama won the Iowa caucuses with 38% of the vote, over Edwards, 30%, and Clinton, 29%. His victory brought him to national prominence as many voters tuned in to the race for the first time. In a speech that evening, he defined ''change'' as the primary theme of his campaign and said, "On this January night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do." The delegate count was virtually tied, but Clinton's surprising third-place finish in the popular vote damaged her image as the "inevitable" nominee. However, she remained upbeat, saying "This race begins tonight and ends when Democrats throughout America have their say. Our campaign was built for a marathon." and rumors of a staff shake-up began to circulate. Biden and Dodd withdrew from the race.

After Obama's upset win in Iowa, it appeared to many political observers that he would ride a wave of momentum through the New Hampshire primaries and then onward to win the Democratic nomination. Eulogies were published on the Clinton campaign, as Obama surged to a roughly 10-point lead in the New Hampshire polls. However, the race turned quickly in the days before the primary, and the polls were slow to register a reversal toward Clinton. At the Saint Anselm College New Hampshire debate on January 5, 2008, Edwards sided with Obama against Clinton debate. In one noted exchange, Edwards said that Clinton could not bring about change, while he and Obama could: "Any time you speak out powerfully for change, the forces for status quo attack." Clinton passionately retorted, "Making change is not about what you believe; it's not about a speech you make. It's about working hard. I'm not just running on a promise for change. I'm running on 35 years of change. What we need is somebody who can deliver change. We don't need to be raising false hopes." It came to be seen as the defining statement for her candidacy. The morning before the primary, Clinton became "visibly emotional" in response to a friendly question from a voter. Video of the moment was replayed on cable news television throughout the day, accompanied by pundit commentary that ranged from sympathetic to callous in tone. Voters rallied to Clinton's defense, and she won a surprising three-percent victory over Obama in the popular vote. They tied in the delegate count. Richardson withdrew from the race on January 10.

Momentum shifted in Clinton's favor, and she won the popular vote in the Nevada caucuses eleven days later, despite Obama's endorsement from the influential Culinary Workers Union. However, Obama ran strongly in rural areas throughout the state and beat Clinton in the delegate count. Edwards's support collapsed in Nevada, as voters coalesced around the two apparent frontrunners. Dennis Kucinich withdrew from the race. In the following week, issues of race came to the fore as campaigning began for the South Carolina primary, the first to feature a large proportion of African Americans in the Democratic electorate. Behind in the state polls, Hillary Clinton left to campaign in some Super Tuesday states, while her husband, former president Bill Clinton, stayed in South Carolina and engaged in a series of exchanges with Obama. CBS News reported, "By injecting himself into the Democratic primary campaign with a series of inflammatory and negative statements, Bill Clinton may have helped his wife's presidential hopes in the long term but at the cost of his reputation with a group of voters African Americans that have long been one of his strongest bases of political support." Obama won by a more than two-to-one margin over Clinton, gaining 55% of the vote to her 27% and Edwards's 18%. The day of the primary, Bill Clinton compared Obama's expected win to Jesse Jackson's victory in the 1988 South Carolina primary. His comments were widely criticized as an apparent attempt to dismiss the primary results and marginalize Obama by implying that he was "the black candidate." The momentum generated by Obama's larger-than-expected win in South Carolina wasn't deflated somewhat by the win Clinton claimed in the nullified Florida primary the following week. John Edwards suspended his candidacy on January 30. He did not immediately endorse either Clinton or Obama, but said they both had pledged to carry forward his central campaign theme of ending poverty in America. Neither Clinton nor Obama had a clear advantage heading into the Super Tuesday primaries, with 23 states and territories and 1,681 delegates at stake and more media attention than any primary election day in American history.

Disputed primaries

In August 2006, the Democratic National Committee adopted a proposal by its Rules and Bylaws Committee stating that only the four states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina would be permitted to hold primaries or caucuses before February 5, 2008. In May 2007, the Florida Legislature passed a bill that moved the date of the state's primary to January 29, 2008, setting up a confrontation with the DNC. In response, the DNC ruled that Florida's 185 pledged delegates and 26 superdelegates would not be seated at the Democratic National Convention, or, if seated, would not be able to vote. In October 2007, Democrats from Florida's congressional delegation filed a federal lawsuit against the DNC to force a recognition of its delegates, but the suit was unsuccessful. The presidential candidates promised not to campaign in Florida.

Meanwhile, Michigan moved its primary to January 15, 2008, also in violation of party rules. In October 2007, Obama, Richardson, Biden, and Edwards withdrew their names from the Michigan primary ballot, under pressure from the DNC and voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. Kucinich unsuccessfully sought to remove his name from the ballot, whereas Clinton and Dodd opted to remain on the ballot. In December 2007, the DNC ruled that Michigan's 128 pledged delegates and 29 superdelegates would not count in the nominating contest unless it were held on a later date. The Michigan Democratic party responded with a press release noting that the primary would proceed with Clinton, Dodd, Gravel, and Kucinich on the ballot. Supporters of Biden, Edwards, Richardson, and Obama were urged to vote "uncommitted" instead of writing in their candidates' names because write-in votes for those candidates would not be counted.

None of the top candidates campaigned in Florida or Michigan. The events were described in the media as "beauty contests," and voter turnout in both states was relatively low when compared with record-high turnout in other states. Nevertheless, Clinton claimed wins in Florida and Michigan, and she flew to Fort Lauderdale on the night of the Florida election to thank supporters for what she called a "tremendous victory."

As the primaries continued, various groups tried to negotiate a resolution to the standoff between the DNC and the state parties. The Clinton campaign advocated first for the results to stand and then for a new round of voting to take place in Michigan and Florida, while the Obama campaign deferred the matter to the DNC, while expressing a wish that the delegations be seated in some form. On all sides, Democrats worried that a failure to resolve the problem could lead to a rules or credential fight at the convention and low Democratic turnout in the general election in November.

On May 31, 2008, the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee voted unanimously (27-0) to restore half-votes to all the Florida Delegates, including superdelegates. The Michigan delegates were also given half-votes, with 69 delegates pledged to Hillary Clinton and 59 to Barack Obama; this proposed change passing by 19-8.

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" |- !rowspan="2" colspan="2" style="width:20em"|Details !rowspan="2" colspan="3" style="width:20em"|Restored Votes to the Convention !colspan="7"|Pledged Delegate Vote Count |- !colspan="3" style="width:15em"|Awarded by the DNC !rowspan="2"|ChangeNotes !colspan="3" style="width:15em"|Current Estimate |- !style="width:6em"|Date !Election link !Pledged !Super !Total !Obama !Clinton !Edwards !Obama !Clinton !Edwards |- |January 15 |Michigan primary |128 |29  |  157 |  59 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|69 |0 | |59 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|69 |0 |- |January 29 |Florida primary | 185 |26 |211 |67 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|105 |13 | |67 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|105 |13 |- | - |TOTAL |311 |55 |368 |126 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|174 |13 | |126 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|174 |13 |}

Super Tuesday

Traditionally, the Tuesday on which the greatest number of states hold primary elections is known as Super Tuesday. In 2007, many states moved their primaries or caucuses early in the calendar to have greater influence over the race. As February 5 was the earliest date allowed by the Democratic National Committee, 23 states and territories moved their elections to that date. This year's Super Tuesday became the date of the nation's first quasi-national primary. It was dubbed "Super Duper Tuesday" or "Tsunami Tuesday," among other names.

After Obama's win in South Carolina on January 26, he received high-profile endorsements from Caroline Kennedy, daughter of former President John F. Kennedy, as well as Senator Ted Kennedy, the former President's brother. Ted Kennedy's endorsement was considered "the biggest Democratic endorsement Obama could possibly get short of Bill Clinton or Al Gore." On January 31, Obama and Clinton met for the first time in a one-on-one debate, and they struck a friendly tone, seeking to put the racially charged comments of the previous week behind them. Obama surged nationally in the polls and held campaign rallies that drew audiences of more than 15,000 people in several states.

A total of 1,681 pledged delegate votes were at stake in the states that voted on February 5. The following table shows the pledged delegate votes awarded in the Super Tuesday states.

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" |- !rowspan="2" style="width:20em"|Details !rowspan="2" colspan="3" style="width:20em"|Delegate Votes to the Convention !colspan="5"|Pledged Delegate Vote Count |- !colspan="2" style="width:12em"|Election Result !rowspan="2"|ChangeNotes !colspan="2" style="width:12em"|Current Estimate |- !Election link !Pledged !Super !Total !Obama !Clinton !Obama !Clinton |- |Alabama primary |52 |8 |60 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|27 |25 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|27 |25 |- |Alaska caucuses |13 |4 |17 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|9 |4 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|10 |3 |- |American Samoa caucuses |3 |6 |9 |1 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|2 | |1 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|2 |- |Arizona primary |56 |11 |67 |25 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|31 | |25 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|31 |- |Arkansas primary |35 |12 |47 |8 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|27 | |8 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|27 |- |California primary |370 |71 |441 |166 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|204 | |166 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|204 |- |Colorado caucuses |55 |15 |70 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|35 |20 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|36 |19 |- |Connecticut primary |48 |12 |60 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|26 |22 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|26 |22 |- |Delaware primary |15 |8 |23 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|9 |6 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|9 |6 |- |Georgia primary |87 |15 |102 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|60 |27 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|60 |27 |- |Idaho caucuses |18 |5 |23 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|15 |3 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|15 |3 |- |Illinois primary |153 |31 |184 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|104 |49 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|104 |49 |- |Kansas caucuses |32 |9 |41 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|23 |9 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|23 |9 |- |Massachusetts primary |93 |28 |121 |38 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|55 | |38 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|55 |- |Minnesota caucuses |72 |16 |88 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|48 |24 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|48 |24 |- |Missouri primary |72 |16 |88 |36 |36 | |36 |36 |- |New Jersey primary |107 |20 |127 |48 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|59 | |48 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|59 |- |New Mexico primary |26 |12 |38 |12 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|14 | |12 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|14 |- |New York primary |232 |49 |281 |93 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|139 | |93 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|139 |- |North Dakota caucuses |13 |8 |21 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|8 |5 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|8 |5 |- |Oklahoma primary |38 |10 |48 |14 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|24 | |14 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|24 |- |Tennessee primary |68 |17 |85 |28 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|40 | |28 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|40 |- |Utah primary |23 |6 |29 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|14 |9 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|14 |9 |- |TOTAL |1,681 |390 |2,071 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|847 |834 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|849 |832 |}

On election night, both Obama and Clinton claimed victories. In the popular vote, Obama won 13 states and territories to Clinton's 10, including states like Idaho and Georgia where he won by very wide margins. His wins in Connecticut and Missouri were considered upsets. However, Clinton won the large electoral prizes of California and Massachusetts, where some analysts had expected the Kennedy endorsements might carry Obama to victory. Although Obama gained significant ground from where he was polling in mid-January, it was not enough to close the gap in those states. In exit polls, Obama gained the overwhelming support of African American voters, and he strengthened his base among college-educated voters and voters younger than 45. Clinton found significant support among white women, Latinos, and voters over the age of 65. Obama ran strongest in caucus states, Rocky Mountain states, the South and the Midwest. Clinton ran strongest in the Northeast, the Southwest, and the states adjacent to Arkansas, where she served as first lady. When the delegate counting was finished, Obama won an estimated 847 pledged delegates to Clinton's 834. Early in the primary season, many observers had predicted that the nomination would be over after Super Tuesday, but the general verdict on election night was that the candidates had drawn to a virtual tie and that the race for the Democratic presidential nomination would not likely be settled for a month, at least.

Mid-February contests

In the following week, it became clear that a tie on Super Tuesday left Obama better positioned for the upcoming contests in February, where the demographics of several large states seemed to favor him. The day after Super Tuesday, February 6, Clinton announced that she had personally lent her campaign $5 million in January. The news came as a surprise and set off another round of news stories about Clinton donors and supporters concerned about the campaign's strategy. It was particularly striking in contrast to Obama's announcement that he had raised a record-high $32 million in January, tapping 170,000 new contributors. It became clear that Obama's financial advantage had allowed him to organize and compete in a broader set of states on Super Tuesday, an advantage likely to continue in the coming weeks and months. Clinton's supporters responded by raising $6 million online in 36 hours, but Obama's campaign upped the ante, announcing their own total of $7.5 million in 36 hours and starting a new goal of reaching 500,000 new contributors in 2008 by the end of February.

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" |- !rowspan="2" colspan="2" style="width:20em"|Details !rowspan="2" colspan="3" style="width:20em"|Delegate Votes to the Convention !colspan="5"|Pledged Delegate Vote Count |- !colspan="2" style="width:12em"|Election Result !rowspan="2"|ChangeNotes !colspan="2" style="width:12em"|Final Estimate |- !Date !Election link !Pledged !Super !Total !Obama !Clinton !Obama !Clinton |- |rowspan="4"|February 9 |Louisiana primary |56 |11 |67 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|33 |23 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|33 |23 |- |Nebraska caucuses |24 |7 |31 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|16 |8 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|16 |8 |- |U.S. Virgin Islands primary |3 |6 |9 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|3 |0 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|3 |0 |- |Washington caucuses |78 |19 |97 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|52 |26 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|52 |26 |- |February 10 |Maine caucuses |24 |8 |32 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|15 |9 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|15 |9 |- |February 5–12 |Democrats Abroad primary |7 |4 |11 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|4½ |2½ | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|4½ |2½ |- |rowspan="3"|February 12 |D.C. primary |15 |24 |39 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|12 |3 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|13 |2 |- |Maryland primary |70 |28 |98 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|42 |28 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|43 |27 |- |Virginia primary |83 |18 |101 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|54 |29 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|54 |29 |- |rowspan="2"|February 19 |Hawaii caucuses |20 |9 |29 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|14 |6 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|14 |6 |- |Wisconsin primary |74 |18 |92 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|42 |32 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|42 |32 |- | - |TOTAL |454 |152 |606 | bgcolor=#FFDEAD|287½ |166½ | | bgcolor=#FFDEAD|289½ |164½ |}

As expected, Obama swept the three nominating events on February 9, which were thought to favor him based on the results in similar states that had voted previously. He then scored a convincing win in Maine, where Clinton had hoped to hold her ground. The same day, Clinton's campaign announced the resignation of campaign advisor Patti Solis Doyle. Obama's momentum carried through the following week, as he scored large delegate gains in the Potomac Primaries, taking the lead in the nationwide popular vote, even under the projection most favorable to Clinton, with Florida and Michigan included. NBC News declared him "Mr. Frontrunner" on February 13. Clinton attempted a comeback win in the demographically more favorable state of Wisconsin, but Obama won again by a larger margin than expected. In a span of 11 days, he swept 11 contests and extended his pledged delegate lead by 120. At the end of the month, Obama had 1,192 pledged delegates to Clinton's 1,035. He also began to close the gap in superdelegates, although Clinton still led among superdelegates, 240 to 191. Clinton's campaign tried to downplay the results of the February contests, and the candidate refused to acknowledge the losses in her speeches on election nights. Her advisers acknowledged that she would need big wins in the upcoming states to turn the race around.

March

With four states and 370 delegates at stake, March 4 was dubbed "Mini-Super Tuesday" or "Super Tuesday 2.0." Just as Obama had been favored in the mid-February states, Clinton was favored in Ohio, with its high proportion of working-class white voters and older voters, and Texas, with its high proportion of Latino voters. Exit polls in previous states showed that all three groups were a part of Clinton's base. In mid-February, Clinton held a 10-point lead in Texas and a 20-point lead in Ohio in RealClearPolitics polling averages. The Clinton campaign set its sights on the Ohio-Texas "firewall," counting on a clear March 4 win to change the narrative and turn around her campaign for the nomination. Meanwhile, Obama hoped to score a win in one or both states that might be enough to knock Clinton out of the race. By February 25, they were in a statistical dead heat in Texas, according to a CNN poll.

In the last week of February, Clinton's campaign seemed to be back on its feet. A Saturday Night Live sketch mocked the media for its supposedly biased coverage in favor of Obama, and Clinton used the sketch to argue that Obama had not received proper scrutiny. The media responded by taking a more critical look at Obama's campaign. Meanwhile, Obama supporter and former fundraiser Tony Rezko went on trial in a political corruption case in Chicago. While Obama was not implicated, questions remained about how forthcoming he had been about his relationship with Rezko. Controversy also erupted when it was reported in the Canadian press that Obama economic advisor Austan Goolsbee had privately offered assurances that Obama's anti-North American Free Trade Agreement rhetoric on the campaign trail was exaggerated. Obama's campaign denied the substance of the report, but their response was muddled by a series of missteps and may have hurt the candidate's standing with Ohio voters. Clinton launched a five-point attack on Obama's qualifications, "unleashing what one Clinton aide called a 'kitchen sink' fusillade," according to ''The New York Times''. Perhaps the most damaging component was a campaign ad that aired in Texas, using the imagery of the White House "red phone" to suggest that Obama would not be prepared to handle a crisis as commander-in-chief when a phone call comes in to the White House at 3 a.m. The ad drew significant media attention in the four days before the election.

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" |- !rowspan="2" colspan="2" style="width:20em"|Details !rowspan="2" colspan="3" style="width:20em"|Delegate Votes to the Convention !colspan="5"|Pledged Delegate Vote Count |- !colspan="2" style="width:12em"|Election Result !rowspan="2"|ChangeNotes !colspan="2" style="width:12em"|Current Estimate |- !style="width:6em"|Date !Election link !Pledged !Super !Total !Obama !Clinton !Obama !Clinton |- |rowspan="5"|March 4 |Ohio primary |141 |21 |162 |67 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|74 | |67 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|74 |- |Rhode Island primary |21 |12 |33 |8 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|13 | |8 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|13 |- |Texas primary |126 |rowspan="2"|35 |rowspan="2"|228 |61 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|65 | |61 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|65 |- |Texas caucuses |67 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|38 |29 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|38 |29 |- |Vermont primary |15 |8 |23 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|9 |6 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|9 |6 |- |March 8 |Wyoming caucuses |12 |6 |18 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|7 |5 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|7 |5 |- |March 11 |Mississippi primary |33 |8 |41 | bgcolor=#FFDEAD|20 |13 | | bgcolor=#FFDEAD|20 |13 |- | - |TOTAL |415 |90 |505 | bgcolor=#FFDEAD|210 | 205 | | bgcolor=#FFDEAD|210 | 205 |- |}

On election night, Clinton scored convincing wins in Ohio and Rhode Island. She narrowly won the Texas primary, while losing the Texas caucus. She pitched her wins that night as a comeback: "For everyone here in Ohio and across America who's ever been counted out but refused to be knocked out, and for everyone who has stumbled but stood right back up, and for everyone who works hard and never gives up, this one is for you."

Obama focused on the "delegate math." He won the total delegate count in Texas, and he stayed close to Clinton on the delegate count in Ohio. "No matter what happens tonight," he said, "we have nearly the same delegate lead that we did this morning, and we are on our way to winning this nomination." In fact, March 4 was the first election day in which Clinton won more delegates than Obama (though the Florida and Michigan primaries would later be honored by seating half of the states' delegations). After winning contests in Wyoming and Mississippi the following week, Obama erased Clinton's March 4 gains. On March 15, he increased his lead by 10 delegates at the Iowa county conventions, when former supporters of withdrawn candidates switched their support to him.

After the March contests, the Democratic race entered a six-week period with no upcoming contests until April 22. As the campaigns settled in for the long haul, advisors for both candidates escalated their rhetoric and stepped up attacks in their daily conference calls. News reports described the tenor as increasingly "rancorous" and "vitriolic."

On March 14, clips of controversial sermons from Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, resurfaced on YouTube and received heavy airtime on cable news television. Among other things, Wright said, "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme." Four days later, Obama responded to the controversy in a 37-minute speech, speaking openly about race and religion in the United States. He denounced Wright's remarks while refusing to condemn the pastor himself, and he attempted to pivot from the immediate circumstances to address the larger theme of "A More Perfect Union." The speech was regarded as "breathtakingly unconventional" in its political strategy and tone, and it received generally positive reviews in the press. ''The New York Times'' weighed in with an editorial: "Senator Barack Obama, who has not faced such tests of character this year, faced one on Tuesday. It is hard to imagine how he could have handled it better." Ten days later, the speech had been watched at least 3.4 million times on YouTube.

On March 21, former primary candidate Bill Richardson, who has previously held important posts in the Clinton Administration, endorsed Barack Obama, a move that drew intense criticism from Clinton allies, including James Carville's Eastertime comparison of Richardson with Judas Iscariot. On March 25, Mike Gravel announced that he would leave the Democrats and join the Libertarian Party, entering the race for the 2008 Libertarian presidential nomination the following day.

April and beyond

[[Image:Obama in Oregon 75,000 people.jpg|right|thumb|200px|On May 18, Obama speaks to a crowd of 75,000 in Portland, Oregon. ]] As the race continued to Pennsylvania, Indiana, and North Carolina, many observers concluded that Clinton had little chance to overcome Obama's lead in pledged delegates. Even if she were to succeed changing the dynamics of the race, there would not be enough pledged delegates remaining for her to catch up under most realistic scenarios. Some analysts believed Clinton could still win the nomination by raising doubts about Obama's electability, fighting for Michigan and Florida delegates to be seated at the convention, and convincing superdelegates to support her despite her expected loss in the pledged delegate vote. However, the window of opportunity for re-votes in Michigan and Florida appeared to close in late March, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, chair of the Democratic National Convention, said that it would be harmful to the party if superdelegates were to overturn the result of the pledged delegate vote.

Complicating the equation for Democrats, presidential candidate John McCain clinched the Republican nomination on March 4. With Obama and Clinton engaged in the Democratic primary, McCain was free to define his candidacy for the general election largely unchallenged. Some Democrats expressed concern that Clinton stayed in the campaign through March and April, when they felt she had little chance to win the nomination, but a much greater chance to damage Obama's candidacy in the general election. However, others defended Clinton's right to continue on, arguing that a sustained campaign was good for the Democratic Party and that Clinton still had a realistic shot at the nomination.

On April 22, Clinton scored a convincing win in Pennsylvania. However, on May 6, Obama surprised many observers by winning North Carolina by almost 15 percentage points, effectively erasing Clinton's gains in Pennsylvania. Clinton won by only 1 point in Indiana. With Obama now leading by 164 pledged delegates and with only 217 pledged delegates left to be decided in the remaining contests, many pundits declared that the primary was effectively over. Obama gave an election night speech that looked forward to the general election campaign against McCain. The pace of superdelegate endorsements increased. On May 10, Obama's superdelegate total surpassed Clinton's for the first time in the race, making the math increasingly difficult for a Clinton win.

Clinton vowed to continue campaigning, and won convincingly in primaries in West Virginia on May 13, and Kentucky on May 20 where Appalachian voters strongly preferred her over Obama. However, Obama was able to clear a victory in Oregon on May 20, which allowed him to clinch the majority of pledged delegates. Obama gave his victory speech in Des Moines, Iowa, the state that propelled his candidacy, in which he stated, "The road here has been long, there have been bumps along the way. I have made some mistakes, but also it's partly because we've traveled this road with one of the most formidable candidates to ever run for this office. Now, some may see the millions upon millions of votes cast for each of us as evidence that our party is divided, but I see it as proof that we have never been more energized and united in our desire to take this country in a new direction." Clinton advisers said they would appeal to the DNC's Rules & Bylaws Committee to have the Michigan and Florida delegations seated. However, even under the most favorable seating arrangement, she would not have been able to take a lead in pledged delegates and would have had to rely on superdelegates to win the nomination. On May 31, the rules committee accepted the Michigan state party's 69-59 distribution of pledged delegates and restored half votes to Florida's and Michigan's delegations. This resulted in a net gain for Clinton of 24 pledged delegates. Obama remained significantly ahead, with a lead of 137 pledged delegates before the Puerto Rico primary on June 1.

On June 3, the day of the final primaries in South Dakota and Montana, Obama rolled out about sixty superdelegate endorsements. Those endorsements, together with the pledged delegates awarded in the final primaries, put him well over the "magic number" of 2,117 delegate votes necessary for a majority at the Democratic National Convention. By early in the evening, all major news organizations had announced that Obama had clinched the Democratic nomination, and Obama claimed the status of presumptive nominee in a speech in St. Paul, Minnesota. Clinton did not concede the nomination in her election night speech, saying that she would be "making no decisions tonight". On the morning of June 5, Clinton posted on her website an open letter to her supporters, which she also sent by e-mail that day. It announced that on Saturday (June 7) Clinton would endorse Obama's candidacy. During a well received concession speech in Washington DC on Saturday June 7 Clinton endorsed Obama in the following terms: "The way to continue our fight now, to accomplish the goals for which we stand is to take our energy, our passion, our strength, and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama, the next president of the United States. Today, as I suspend my campaign, I congratulate him on the victory he has won and the extraordinary race he has run. I endorse him and throw my full support behind him."

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;margin-bottom:0" |- !rowspan="2" colspan="2" style="width:20em"|Details !rowspan="2" colspan="3" style="width:20em"|Delegate Votes to the Convention !colspan="6"|Pledged Delegate Vote Count |- !colspan="2" style="width:15em"|Election Result !rowspan="2"|ChangeNotes !colspan="2" style="width:15em"|Current Estimate |- !style="width:6em"|Date !Election link !Pledged !Super !Total !Obama !Clinton !Obama !Clinton |- |April 22 |Pennsylvania primary |158 |29 |187 |73 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|85 | |73 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|85 |- |May 3 |Guam caucuses |4 |5 |9 |2 |2 | |2 |2 |- |rowspan="2"|May 6 |Indiana primary |72 |13 |85 |34 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|38 | |34 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|38 |- |North Carolina primary |115 |19 |134 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|67 |48 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|67 |48 |- |May 13 |West Virginia primary |28 |11 |39 |8 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|20 | |8 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|20 |- |rowspan="2"|May 20 |Kentucky primary |51 |9 |60 |14 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|37 | |14 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|37 |- |Oregon primary |52 |13 |65 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|31 |21 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|31 |21 |- |June 1 |Puerto Rico primary |55 |8 |63 |17 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|38 | |17 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|38 |- |rowspan="2"|June 3 |Montana primary |16 |9 |25 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|9 |7 | |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|9 |7 |- |South Dakota primary |15 |8 |23 |6 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|9 | |6 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|9 |- | - |At-large vacancies^* | - |2 |2 | | | | | |- | - |TOTAL |566 |126 |692 |261 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|305 | |261 |bgcolor=#FFDEAD|305 |} * Two at-large DNC superdelegate seats are vacant, see: History of superdelegate composition changes.

Voter turnout

Voter turnout was at historically high levels in the 2008 primaries and caucuses, with many contests setting all-time records for turnout. Voter turnout on Super Tuesday was at 27% of eligible citizens, breaking the previous record of 25.9% set in 1972. Turnout was higher among Democrats than Republicans, with Democratic turnout surpassing Republican turnout even in traditionally red states where the number of registered Democrats is proportionally low. Many states reported high levels of Democratic voter registration in the weeks before primaries. From January 3 through February 5, Democratic turnout exceeded Republican turnout, 19.1 million to 13.1 million.

The high Democratic turnout was attributed to several factors:

the compressed primary calendar, which gave voters in more states an opportunity to participate in the nomination

the first competitive Democratic race since 1992

media interest and voter excitement generated by the first viable African American and female presidential contenders

dissatisfaction with Republican presidential candidates

the early emergence of John McCain as the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party

open primaries in some states, which allowed Republicans and independent voters to participate in Democratic contests

dissatisfaction with President George W. Bush and Iraq War policy

cyclical party realignment

See also

U.S. Presidential election, 2008

Political positions of Barack Obama

Political positions of Hillary Rodham Clinton

Republican Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2008

Statewide opinion polling for the Democratic Party presidential primaries, 2008

Nationwide opinion polling for the Democratic Party 2008 presidential candidates

Fundraising for the 2008 United States presidential election

Notes and references

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Name	Democratic Party
Logo
Colorcode	#00A6EF
Chairperson	Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL)
Leader1 title	President of the United States
Leader1 name	Barack Obama (President) (IL)
Leader2 title	Senate Leader
Leader2 name	Joe Biden (President) (DE)Daniel Inouye (President pro tempore) (HI)Harry Reid (Majority Leader) (NV)
Leader3 title	House Leader
Leader3 name	Nancy Pelosi (CA)
Leader4 title	Chair of Governors Association
Leader4 name	Martin O'Malley (MD)
Founded	1828 (modern)1792 (historical)
Headquarters	430 South Capital Street SE,Washington, D.C., 20003
Student wing	College Democrats of America
Youth wing	Young Democrats of America
Ideology	Modern:American liberalismThird WayProgressivismInternal factions: Progressive Democrats Libertarian Democrats Moderate Democrats Conservative Democrats Historical:Jacksonian democracyClassical liberalismBimetallismStates' rightsPaleoconservatism
International	Alliance of Democrats
Colors	Blue
Blank1 title	Position in national political spectrum
Blank1	Center-left
Seats1 title	Seats in the Senate
Seats1
Seats2 title	Seats in the House
Seats2
Seats3 title	Governorships
Seats3
Seats4 title	State Upper House Seats
Seats4
Seats5 title	State Lower House Seats
Seats5
Website
Country	United States }}

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous operation in the United States, and is one of the oldest political parties in the world. Barack Obama is the 15th Democrat to hold the office of President of the United States.

As of the 112th Congress following the 2010 elections, the Democratic Party currently holds a minority of seats in the House of Representatives, but holds a majority of seats in the Senate. It currently holds a minority of state governorships, as well as a minority of state legislatures.

History

The Democratic Party evolved from Anti-Federalist factions that opposed the fiscal policies of Alexander Hamilton in the early 1790s. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison organized these factions into the Democratic-Republican Party. The party favored states' rights and strict adherence to the Constitution; it opposed a national bank and wealthy, moneyed interests. The Democratic-Republican Party ascended to power in the election of 1800. After the War of 1812, the party's chief rival, the Federalist Party disbanded. Democratic-Republicans split over the choice of a successor to President James Monroe, and the party faction that supported many of the old Jeffersonian principles, led by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, became the Democratic Party. Along with the Whig Party, the Democratic Party was the chief party in the United States until the Civil War. The Whigs were a commercial party, and usually less popular, if better financed. The Whigs divided over the slavery issue after the Mexican–American War and faded away. In the 1850s, under the stress of the Fugitive Slave Law and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, anti-slavery Democrats left the party. Joining with former members of existing or dwindling parties, the Republican Party emerged.

The Democrats split over the choice of a successor to President James Buchanan along Northern and Southern lines, while the Republican Party gained ascendancy in the election of 1860. As the American Civil War broke out, Northern Democrats were divided into War Democrats and Peace Democrats. The Confederate States of America, seeing parties as evils, did not have any. Most War Democrats rallied to Republican President Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans' National Union Party in 1864, which put Andrew Johnson on the ticket as a Democrat from the South. Johnson replaced Lincoln in 1865 but stayed independent of both parties . The Democrats benefited from white Southerners' resentment of Reconstruction after the war and consequent hostility to the Republican Party. After Redeemers ended Reconstruction in the 1870s, and the extremely violent disenfranchisement of African Americans took place in the 1890s, the South, voting Democratic, became known as the "Solid South." Though Republicans won all but two presidential elections, the Democrats remained competitive. The party was dominated by pro-business Bourbon Democrats led by Samuel J. Tilden and Grover Cleveland, who represented mercantile, banking, and railroad interests; opposed imperialism and overseas expansion; fought for the gold standard; opposed bimetallism; and crusaded against corruption, high taxes, and tariffs. Cleveland was elected to non-consecutive presidential terms in 1884 and 1892.

Agrarian Democrats demanding Free Silver overthrew the Bourbon Democrats in 1896 and nominated William Jennings Bryan for the presidency (a nomination repeated by Democrats in 1900 and 1908). Bryan waged a vigorous campaign attacking Eastern moneyed interests, but he lost to Republican William McKinley. The Democrats took control of the House in 1910 and elected Woodrow Wilson as president in 1912 and 1916. Wilson effectively led Congress to put to rest the issues of tariffs, money, and antitrust that had dominated politics for 40 years with new progressive laws. The Great Depression in 1929 that occurred under Republican President Herbert Hoover and the Republican Congress set the stage for a more liberal government; the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives nearly uninterrupted from 1931 until 1995 and won most presidential elections until 1968. Franklin D. Roosevelt, elected to the presidency in 1932, came forth with government programs called the New Deal. New Deal liberalism meant the promotion of social welfare, labor unions, civil rights, and regulation of business. The opponents, who stressed long-term growth, support for business, and low taxes, started calling themselves "conservatives."

Issues facing parties and the United States after World War II included the Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement. Republicans attracted conservatives and white Southerners from the Democratic coalition with their resistance to New Deal and Great Society liberalism and the Republicans' use of the Southern strategy. African Americans, who traditionally supported the Republican Party, began supporting Democrats following the ascent of the Franklin Roosevelt administration, the New Deal, and the Civil Rights movement. The Democratic Party's main base of support shifted to the Northeast, marking a dramatic reversal of history. Bill Clinton was elected to the presidency in 1992, governing as a New Democrat. The Democratic Party lost control of Congress in the election of 1994 to the Republican Party. Re-elected in 1996, Clinton was the first Democratic President since Franklin Roosevelt to be elected to two terms. Following twelve years of Republican rule, the Democratic Party regained majority control of both the House and the Senate in the 2006 elections. Some of the party's key issues in the early 21st century in their last national platform have included the methods of how to combat terrorism, homeland security, expanding access to health care, labor rights, environmentalism, and the preservation of liberal government programs. In the 2010 elections, the Democratic Party lost control of the House, but kept a small majority in the Senate (reduced from the 111th Congress). It also lost its majority in state legislatures and state governorships.

The Democratic Party traces its origins to the inspiration of Democratic-Republican Party, founded by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and other influential opponents of the Federalists in 1792. That party also inspired the Whigs and modern Republicans. Organizationally, the modern Democratic Party truly arose in the 1830s, with the election of Andrew Jackson. Since the division of the Republican Party in the election of 1912, it has gradually positioned itself to the left of the Republican Party on economic and social issues. Until the period following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Democratic Party was primarily a coalition of two parties divided by region. Southern Democrats were typically given high conservative ratings by the American Conservative Union while northern Democrats were typically given very low ratings. Southern Democrats were a core bloc of the bipartisan conservative coalition which lasted through the Reagan-era. The economically activist philosophy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, which has strongly influenced American liberalism, has shaped much of the party's economic agenda since 1932, and served to tie the two regional factions of the party together until the late 1960s. In fact, Roosevelt's New Deal coalition usually controlled the national government until the 1970s.

, Gallup polling found that 38% of Americans identified as Democrats, 29% as Republicans, and 38% as independents. A Pew Research Center survey of registered voters released August 2010 stated that 47% identified as Democrats or leaned towards the party, in comparison to 43% of Republicans.

Current structure and composition

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is responsible for promoting Democratic campaign activities. While the DNC is responsible for overseeing the process of writing the Democratic Platform, the DNC is more focused on campaign and organizational strategy than public policy. In presidential elections, it supervises the Democratic National Convention. The national convention is, subject to the charter of the party, the ultimate authority within the Democratic Party when it is in session, with the DNC running the party's organization at other times. The DNC is currently chaired by Florida congresswomen Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) assists party candidates in House races; its current chairman (selected by the party caucus) is Rep. Steve Israel of New York. Similarly, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), currently headed by Senator Patty Murray of Washington, raises large sums for Senate races. The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), currently chaired by Mike Gronstal of Iowa, is a smaller organization with much less funding that focuses on state legislative races. The DNC sponsors the College Democrats of America (CDA), a student-outreach organization with the goal of training and engaging a new generation of Democratic activists. Democrats Abroad is the organization for Americans living outside the United States; they work to advance the goals of the party and encourage Americans living abroad to support the Democrats. The Young Democrats of America (YDA) is a youth-led organization that attempts to draw in and mobilize young people for Democratic candidates, but operates outside of the DNC. In addition, the recently created branch of the Young Democrats, the Young Democrats High School Caucus, attempts to raise awareness and activism amongst teenagers to not only vote and volunteer, but participate in the future as well. The Democratic Governors Association (DGA), chaired by Governor Martin O'Malley of Maryland, is an organization supporting the candidacies of Democratic gubernatorial nominees and incumbents. Likewise, the mayors of the largest cities and urban centers convene as the National Conference of Democratic Mayors.

Each state also has a state committee, made up of elected committee members as well as ex-officio committee members (usually elected officials and representatives of major constituencies), which in turn elects a chair. County, town, city, and ward committees generally are composed of individuals elected at the local level. State and local committees often coordinate campaign activities within their jurisdiction, oversee local conventions and in some cases primaries or caucuses, and may have a role in nominating candidates for elected office under state law. Rarely do they have much funding, but in 2005, DNC Chairman Dean began a program (called the "50 State Strategy") of using DNC national funds to assist all state parties and paying for full-time professional staffers.

Ideology

Since the 1890s, the Democratic Party has favored liberal positions (the term "liberal" in this sense describes social liberalism, not classical liberalism). In recent exit polls, the Democratic Party has had broad appeal across all socio-ethno-economic demographics. Historically, the party has favored farmers, laborers, labor unions, and religious and ethnic minorities; it has opposed unregulated business and finance, and favored progressive income taxes. In foreign policy, internationalism (including interventionism) was a dominant theme from 1913 to the mid-1960s. In the 1930s, the party began advocating welfare spending programs targeted at the poor. The party had a pro-business wing, typified by Al Smith, and a Southern conservative wing that shrank after President Lyndon B. Johnson supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The major influences for liberalism were labor unions (which peaked in the 1936–1952 era), and the African American wing, which has steadily grown since the 1960s. Since the 1970s, environmentalism has been a major new component.

In recent decades, the party has adopted a centrist economic and socially progressive agenda, with the voter base having shifted considerably. Today, Democrats advocate more social freedoms, affirmative action, balanced budget, and a free enterprise system tempered by government intervention (mixed economy). The economic policy adopted by the modern Democratic Party, including the former Clinton administration, has been referred to as the "Third Way". The party believes that government should play a role in alleviating poverty and social injustice and use a system of progressive taxation.

The Democratic Party, once dominant in the Southeastern United States, is now strongest in the Northeast (Mid-Atlantic and New England), Great Lakes region, and the Pacific Coast (including Hawaii). The Democrats are also very strong in major cities.

Liberals

Social liberals (modern liberals) and progressives constitute roughly half of the Democratic voter base. Liberals thereby form the largest united typological demographic within the Democratic base. According to the 2008 exit poll results, liberals constituted 22% of the electorate, and 89% of American liberals favored the candidate of the Democratic Party. White-collar college-educated professionals were mostly Republican until the 1950s; they now compose perhaps the most vital component of the Democratic Party. A large majority of liberals favor universal health care, with many supporting a single-payer system. A majority also favor diplomacy over military action, stem cell research, the legalization of same-sex marriage, secular government, stricter gun control, and environmental protection laws as well as the preservation of abortion rights. Immigration and cultural diversity is deemed positive; liberals favor cultural pluralism, a system in which immigrants retain their native culture in addition to adopting their new culture. They tend to be divided on free trade agreements and organizations such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Most liberals oppose increased military spending and the display of the Ten Commandments in public buildings.

This ideological group differs from the traditional organized labor base. According to the Pew Research Center, a plurality of 41% resided in mass affluent households and 49% were college graduates, the highest figure of any typographical group. It was also the fastest growing typological group between the late 1990s and early 2000s. Liberals include most of academia and large portions of the professional class.

A study on the political attitudes of medical students, for example, found that "U.S. medical students are considerably more likely to be liberal than conservative and are more likely to be liberal than are other young U.S. adults. Future U.S. physicians may be more receptive to liberal messages than conservative ones, and their political orientation may profoundly affect their health system attitudes." Similar results are found for professors, who are more strongly inclined towards liberalism and the Democratic Party than other occupational groups. The Democratic Party also has strong support among scientists, with 55% identifying as Democrats, 32% as Independents, and 6% as Republicans and 52% identifying as liberal, 35% as moderate, and 9% as conservative.

Academia

Academics, intellectuals, and the highly educated overall constitute an important part of the Democratic voter base. Academia in particular tends to be progressive. In a 2005 survey, nearly 72% of full-time faculty members identified as liberal, while 15% identified as conservative. The social sciences and humanities were the most liberal disciplines while business was the most conservative. Male professors at more advanced stages of their careers as well as those at elite institutions tend be the most liberal. Percentages of professors who identified as liberal ranged from 49% in business to over 80% in political science and the humanities. Whether or not that is true, some conservatives and Republicans complain they are offended and even threatened by the liberal atmosphere of college campuses. As of July 2008 the Students for Academic Freedom arm of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a conservative organization, posted a list of 440 student complaints, most of which pertain to perceived liberal bias of college professors.

Some attribute the liberal inclination of American professors to the more liberal outlook of the highly educated. 1996, 2000, elections. Intellectualism, the tendency to constantly reexamine issues, or in the words of Edwards Shields, the "penetration beyond the screen of immediate concrete experience," has also been named as an explanation why academia is strongly democratic and liberal.

Although Democrats are well-represented at the postgraduate level, self-identified Republicans are more likely to have attained a 4-year college degree. The trends for the years 1955 through 2004 are shown by gender in the graphs above, reproduced with permission from Democrats and Republicans — Rhetoric and Reality, a book published in 2008 by Joseph Fried. These results are based on surveys conducted by the National Election Studies, supported by the National Science Foundation.

Youth

Studies have shown that younger voters tend to vote mostly for Democratic candidates in recent years. Despite supporting Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, the young have voted in favor of the Democratic presidential candidate in every election since Bill Clinton in 1992, and are more likely to identify as liberals than the general population. In the 2004 presidential election, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry received 54% of the vote from voters of the age group 18–29, while Republican George W. Bush received 45% of the vote from the same age group. In the 2006 midterm elections, the Democrats received 60% of the vote from the same age group. It is based on surveys conducted by the National Election Studies (NES).

The historic decline in union membership over the past half century has been accompanied by a growing disparity between public sector and private sector union membership percentages. The three most significant labor groupings in the Democratic coalition today are the AFL-CIO and Change to Win labor federations, as well as the National Education Association, a large, unaffiliated teachers' union. Both the AFL-CIO and Change to Win have identified their top legislative priority for 2007 as passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. Other important issues for labor unions include supporting industrial policy (including protectionism) that sustains unionized manufacturing jobs, raising the minimum wage and promoting broad social programs such as Social Security and universal health care.

Working class

While the American working class has lost much of its political strength with the decline of labor unions, it remains a stronghold of the Democratic Party and continues as an essential part of the Democratic base. Today, roughly a third of the American public is estimated to be working class with around 52% being either members of the working or lower classes. Yet, as those with lower socioeconomic status are less likely to vote, the working and lower classes are underrepresented in the electorate. The working class is largely distinguished by highly routinized and closely supervised work. It consists mainly of clerical and blue-collar workers. Even though most in the working class are able to afford an adequate standard of living, high economic insecurity and possible personal benefit from an extended social safety net, make the majority of working class person left-of-center on economic issues. Most working class Democrats differ from most liberals, however, in their more socially conservative views. Working class Democrats tend to be more religious and likely to belong to an ethnic minority. Socially conservative and disadvantaged Democrats are among the least educated and lowest earning ideological demographics. In 2005, only 15% had a college degree, compared to 27% at the national average and 49% of liberals, respectively. Together socially conservative and the financially disadvantaged comprised roughly 54% of the Democratic base. The continued importance of the working class votes manifests itself in recent CNN exit polls, which shows that the majority of those with low incomes and little education vote for the Democratic Party. The National Federation of Democratic Women is an affiliated organization meant to advocate for women's issues. National women's organizations that often support Democratic candidates are Emily's List and the National Organization for Women.

Relation to marital status and parenthood

Americans that identify as single, living with a domestic partner, divorced, separated, or widowed are more likely to vote Democratic, in contrast to married Americans, which split about equally between Democrat and Republican.

GSS surveys of more than 11,000 Democrats and Republicans conducted between 1996 and 2006 came to the result that the differences in fertility rates are not statistically significant between these parties, with the average Democrat having 1.94 children and the average Republican having 1.91 children. However, there is a significant difference in fertility rates between the two related groups liberals and conservatives, with liberals reproducing at much lower rate than conservatives.

LGBT Americans

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans typically vote Democratic in national elections within the 70-77% range, according to national media exit polling. In heavily gay precincts in large cities across the nation, the average was higher, ranging from 85-94%. This trend has continued since 1996 when Bill Clinton won 71% of the LGBT vote compared to Bob Dole's 16% and 13% for others. In 2000 Al Gore won 70% to George W. Bush's 25% with 5% for others, in 2004 John Kerry won 77% to George W. Bush's 23% and in 2008 Barack Obama won 70% to John McCain's 27% with 3% to others. Patrick Egan, a professor of politics at New York University specializing in LGBT voting patterns, calls this a "remarkable continuity." Saying "about three-fourths vote Democratic and one-fourth Republican from year to year." Notable LGBT Democrats include current Representatives Barney Frank of Massachusetts, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Jared Polis of Colorado and David Cicilline of Rhode Island. The late activist and San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk was a Democrat. The National Stonewall Democrats is an LGBT advocacy group associated with the Democratic Party. The LGBT Equality Caucus is a congressional caucus of 76 Democrats and 1 Republican that work and advocate for LGBT rights within the House of Representatives.

African Americans

From the end of the Civil War, African Americans almost unanimously favored the Republican Party due to its overwhelming political and more tangible efforts in achieving abolition, particularly through President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. The south had long been a Democratic stronghold, favoring a state's right to legal slavery. In addition, the ranks of the fledgling Ku Klux Klan were composed almost entirely of white Democrats angry over poor treatment by northerners, both perceived and actual. However, as years passed and memories waned, African Americans began drifting to the Democratic Party, as Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs gave economic relief to all minorities, including African Americans and Hispanics. Support for the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s by Democratic presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson helped give the Democrats even larger support among the African American community, which consistently vote between 85-95% Democratic. In addition, recent Caribbean and African immigrants have voted solidly Democratic.

Prominent modern-day African-American Democratic politicians include Jim Clyburn, Ed Towns, Maxine Waters, John Lewis, Deval Patrick, Charles Rangel, John Conyers, and the current President of the United States, Barack Obama, who managed to net over 95% of the African American vote in the 2008 election. Despite being unaffiliated, the NAACP often participates in organizing and voter turnout drives and advocates for progressive causes, especially those that affect people of color. Within the House of Representatives, the Congressional Black Caucus, consisting of 44 black Democrats, serves to represent the interests of African Americans and advocate on issues that affect them.

Hispanic and Latino Americans

The Hispanic population, particularly the large Mexican American and Salvadoran American population in the Southwest and the large Puerto Rican and Dominican populations in the Northeast, have been strong supporters of the Democratic Party. They commonly favor liberal views on immigration. In the 1996 presidential election, Democratic President Bill Clinton received 72% of the Hispanic vote. Since then, however, the Republican Party has gained increasing support from the Hispanic community, especially among Hispanic Protestants and Pentecostals. Along with Bush's much more liberal views on immigration, President Bush was the first Republican president to gain 40% of the Hispanic vote (he did so in the 2004 presidential election). Yet, the Republican Party's support among Hispanics eroded in the 2006 midterm elections, dropping from 44 to 30 percent, with the Democrats gaining in the Hispanic vote from 55% in 2004 to 69% in 2006. According to Bendixen's exit polls, 84% of Miami-Dade Cuban American voters 65 or older backed McCain, while 55% of those 29 or younger backed Obama. Showing that the younger Cuban-American generation have shifted to becoming more liberal. But Mexican Americans, Puerto Rican Americans, Dominican Americans, and Central American and South American immigrants have all voted dependably for Democrats. Unaffiliated Hispanic advocacy groups that often support progressive candidates and causes include the National Council of La Raza and the League of United Latin American Citizens. In the House of Representatives, the Democratic caucus of Hispanic Americans is the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Throughout the decade of the 2000s, 60% or more of Hispanic Roman Catholics registered voters have identified as either Democratic or leaning towards the Party.

Native Americans

The Democratic Party also has strong support among the Native American population, particularly in Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. Though now a small percentage of the population (virtually non-existent in some regions), most Native American precincts vote Democratic in margins exceeded only by African-Americans.

Jewish Americans

Jewish American communities tend to be a stronghold for the Democratic Party, with more than 70% of Jewish voters having cast their ballots for the Democrats in the 2004 and 2006 elections.

Jews as an important Democratic constituency are especially politically active and influential in large cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago and play critical roles in large cities within Presidential Swing States such as Philadelphia, Miami, and Las Vegas. Many prominent national Democrats in recent decades have been Jewish, including Chuck Schumer, Abraham Ribicoff, Henry Waxman, Martin Frost, Joseph Lieberman, Dianne Feinstein, Barney Frank, Barbara Boxer, Paul Wellstone, Rahm Emanuel, Russ Feingold, Herb Kohl, and Howard Metzenbaum.

Arab and Muslim Americans

Arab Americans and Muslim Americans have leaned Democratic since the Iraq War. Zogby found in June 2007 that 39% of Arab Americans identify as Democrats, 26% as Republicans, and 28% as independents.

Arab Americans, generally socially conservative but with more diverse economic views, historically voted Republican until recent years, having supported George W. Bush over Al Gore in 2000.

Recent issue stances

Columnist Ezra Klein argues that the current Democractic Party and President Obama have adopted the same positions held by moderate Republicans in the early 1990s.

The following views are generally held by most Democrats. Some Democrats take other positions on these issues.

Economic issues

Minimum wage

Democrats favor a higher minimum wage, and more regular increases. The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 was an early component of the Democrats' agenda during the 110th Congress. In 2006, the Democrats supported six state ballot initiatives to increase the minimum wage; all six initiatives passed.

Fiscal policy

Democrats generally support a more progressive tax structure to provide more services and reduce economic inequality. Currently they have proposed allowing those tax cuts the Bush administration gave to the wealthiest Americans to expire as written in the original legislation while wishing to keep in place those given to the middle class. Democrats generally support more government spending on social services while spending less on the military. They oppose the cutting of social services, such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and various welfare programs, believing it to be harmful to efficiency and social justice. Democrats believe the benefits of social services, in monetary and non-monetary terms, are a more productive labor force and cultured population, and believe that the benefits of this are greater than any benefits that could be derived from lower taxes, especially on top earners, or cuts to social services. Furthermore, Democrats see social services as essential towards providing positive freedom, i.e. freedom derived from economic opportunity. The Democratic-led House of Representatives reinstated the PAYGO (pay-as-you-go) budget rule at the start of the 110th Congress. DNC Chairman Howard Dean has cited Bill Clinton's presidency as a model for fiscal responsibility.

Health care reform

Democrats call for "affordable and quality health care," and many advocate an expansion of government intervention in this area. Many Democrats favor national health insurance or universal health care in a variety of forms to address the rising costs of modern health insurance. Some Democrats, such as Representatives John Conyers and John Dingell, have called for a single-payer program of Medicare for All. The Progressive Democrats of America, a group operating inside the Democratic Party, has made single-payer universal health care one of their primary policy goals.

Some Democratic governors have supported purchasing Canadian drugs, citing lower costs and budget restrictions as a primary incentive. Recognizing that unpaid insurance bills increase costs to the service provider, who passes the cost on to health-care consumers, many Democrats advocate expansion of health insurance coverage.

Policies which most Democrats favor include:

ending the ability of insurers to drop coverage when people get sick

ending lifetime caps on benefits and payments insurers provide

creating a nation-wide insurance exchange across state lines

dropping the current anti-trust provision for insurance companies

requiring large businesses to provide employer-based insurance

mandating coverage for all Americans

ending insurance companies ability to discriminate based on pre-existing conditions

expansion of Medicaid

providing subsidies for low to moderate income families and small businesses

allowing children to stay on their parents coverage longer

the expansion of Medicare to those aged 55

importing Canadian drugs and creating a national public insurance option paid for by premiums and co-pays.

Many of these proposals were included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.

Renewable energy and oil

Democrats have opposed tax cuts and incentives to oil companies, favoring a policy of developing domestic renewable energy, such as Montana's state-supported wind farm and "clean coal" programs as well as setting in place a cap and trade policy in hopes of reducing carbon emissions and creating incentives for clean-energy innovations.

Environment

Democrats believe that the government should protect the environment and have a history of environmentalism. In more recent years, this stance has had as its emphasis alternative energy generation as the basis for an improved economy, greater national security, and general environmental benefits.

The Democratic Party also favors expansion of conservation lands and encourages open space and rail travel to relieve highway and airport congestion and improve air quality and economy; it "believe[s] that communities, environmental interests, and government should work together to protect resources while ensuring the vitality of local economies. Once Americans were led to believe they had to make a choice between the economy and the environment. They now know this is a false choice."

The most important environmental concern of the Democratic Party is global warming. Democrats, most notably former Vice President Al Gore, have pressed for stern regulation of greenhouse gases. On October 15, 2007, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to build greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and laying the foundations for the measures needed to counteract these changes asserting that "the climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity."

College education

Most Democrats have the long-term aim of having low-cost, publicly funded college education with low tuition fees (like in much of Europe and Canada), which should be available to every eligible American student, or alternatively, with increasing state funding for student financial aid such as the Pell Grant or college tuition tax deduction.

Trade agreements

The Democratic Party has a mixed record on international trade agreements that reflects a diversity of viewpoints in the party. The liberal and cosmopolitan wing of the party, including the intelligentsia and college-educated professionals overall, tend to favor globalization, while the organized labor wing of the party opposes it. In the 1990s, the Clinton administration and a number of prominent Democrats pushed through a number of agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Since then, the party's shift away from free trade became evident in the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) vote, with 15 House Democrats voting for the agreement and 187 voting against.

In his 1997 ''Achieving Our Country'', philosopher Richard Rorty, professor at Stanford University states that economic globalization "invites two responses from the Left. The first is to insist that the inequalities between nations need to be mitigated... The second is to insist that the primary responsibility of each democratic nation-state is to its own least advantaged citizens... the first response suggests that the old democracies should open their borders, whereas the second suggests that they should close them. The first response comes naturally to academic leftists, who have always been internationally minded. The second comes naturally to members of trade unions, and to marginally employed people who can most easily be recruited into right-wing populist movements." (p. 88)

Alternative Minimum Tax

While the Democratic Party is in support of a progressive tax structure, it has vowed to adjust the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). The tax was originally designed to tax the rich but now may affect many households, especially those with incomes ranging from $75,000 to $100,000. The party proposed to re-adjust the tax in such a manner as to restore its initial intention. According to a 2007 Reuters News Report, "House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel has said he will push for permanent AMT relief for those taxpayers who were never meant to pay it."

Social issues

Discrimination

The Democratic Party supports equal opportunity for all Americans regardless of sex, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, creed, or national origin. The Party supports affirmative action programs to further this goal. Democrats also strongly support the Americans with Disabilities Act to prohibit discrimination against people based on physical or mental disability.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights

The Democratic Party has been divided on the subject of same-sex marriage, though support for it has been increasing and most of the support for same-sex marriage in the United States has come from Democrats. Some members favor civil unions for same-sex couples, others favor full and equal legalized marriage, and others are opposed to same-sex marriage on religious or ideological grounds. Support for same-sex marriage has increased in the past decade according to ABC News. An April 2009 ABC News/Washington Post public opinion poll put support among Democrats at 62% A June 2008 ''Newsweek'' poll found that 42% of Democrats support same-sex marriage while 23% support civil unions or domestic partnership laws and 28% oppose any legal recognition at all. The 2004 Democratic National Platform stated that marriage should be defined at the state level and it repudiated the Federal Marriage Amendment. Senator John Kerry, Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, did not support same-sex marriage. Former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore said in 2009 that they now support gay marriage.

President Barack Obama has stated that he considers marriage to be "something sanctified between a man and a woman". He campaigned for the election promising to "give same-sex couples equal legal rights and privileges as married couples" in civil unions. At the same time, Obama opposed California's Prop 8, and he has promised to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. Obama has stated that generally "decisions about marriage should be left to the states as they always have been." However, when running for the Illinois Senate in 1996, he said that he "unequivocally support(ed) gay marriage" and "favor(ed) legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages."

A broad majority of Democrats have supported other LGBT related laws such as extending hate crime statutes, legally preventing discrimination against LGBT people in the workforce, and repealing Don't ask, don't tell. A 2006 Pew Research Center poll of Democrats found that 55% supported gays adopting children with 40% opposed while 70% support gays in the military with only 23% opposed. Gallup polling from May 2009 stated that 82% of Democrats support open enlistment.

Reproductive rights

Most members of the Democratic Party believe that all women should have access to birth control, and support public funding of contraception for poor women. The Democratic Party, in its national platforms from 1992 to 2004, has called for abortion to be "safe, legal and rare" — namely, keeping it legal by rejecting laws that allow governmental interference in abortion decisions, and reducing the number of abortions by promoting both knowledge of reproduction and contraception, and incentives for adoption. The wording changed in the 2008 platform. When Congress voted on the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2003, Congressional Democrats were split, with a minority (including current Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid) supporting the ban, and the majority of Democrats opposing the legislation.

The Democratic Party opposes attempts to reverse the 1973 Supreme Court decision ''Roe v. Wade'', which declared abortion covered by the constitutionally protected individual right to privacy under the Ninth Amendment, and ''Planned Parenthood v. Casey'', which lays out the legal framework in which government action alleged to violate that right is assessed by courts. As a matter of the right to privacy and of gender equality, many Democrats believe all women should have the ability to choose to abort without governmental interference. They believe that each woman, conferring with her conscience, has the right to choose for herself whether abortion is morally correct. Some Democrats also believe that poor women should have a right to publicly funded abortions.

Current Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid self-identifies as 'pro-life', while President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi self-identify as 'pro-choice'. Groups such as Democrats for Life of America represent the pro-life faction of the party, while groups such as EMILY's List represent the pro-choice faction. A ''Newsweek'' poll from October 2006 found that 25% of Democrats were pro-life while a 69% majority was pro-choice. Pro-life Democrats themselves state that they represent over 40% of Democrats.

Embryonic stem cell research

The Democratic Party has voiced strong support for embryonic stem cell research with federal funding. In his 2004 platform, John Kerry affirmed his support of federally funded embryonic stem cell research "under the strictest ethical guidelines," saying, "We will not walk away from the chance to save lives and reduce human suffering." In 2009, Barack Obama lifted the eight-year running ban on embryonic stem cell research and proposed federal funding to further research.

Foreign policy issues

Invasion of Afghanistan

Democrats in the House of Representatives and in the Senate near-unanimously voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists against "those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States" in Afghanistan in 2001, supporting the NATO coalition invasion of the nation. Most elected Democrats continue to support the Afghanistan conflict, and some, such as a Democratic National Committee spokesperson, have voiced concerns that the Iraq War shifted too many resources away from the presence in Afghanistan. Since 2006, Democratic candidate Barack Obama has called for a "surge" of troops into Afghanistan and, since 2008, Republican candidate John McCain has also called for a "surge".

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer expressed support for Obama's plan. Pelosi stated in mid-2008, “We need more resources there... We are understaffed there, not only in our military presence, but also in terms of the reconstruction of Afghanistan." After his election as President, Barack Obama sent about 21,000 additional U.S. forces into the country. He has planned to send 68,000 troops by the year's end.

Support for the war among the American people has diminished over time, and many Democrats have changed their opinion and now oppose a continuation of the conflict. In July 2008, Gallup found that 41% of Democrats called the invasion a "mistake" while a 55% majority disagreed; in contrast, Republicans were more supportive of the war. The survey described Democrats as evenly divided about whether or not more troops should be sent— 56% support it if it would mean removing troops from Iraq and only 47% support it otherwise. A CNN survey in August 2009 stated that a majority of Democrats now oppose the war. CNN polling director Keating Holland said, "Nearly two thirds of Republicans support the war in Afghanistan. Three quarters of Democrats oppose the war." An August 2009 ''Washington Post'' poll found similar results, and the paper stated that Obama's policies would anger his closest supporters.

Israel

The Democratic Party has both recently and historically supported Israel. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said, “When it comes to Israel, Republicans and Democrats speak with one voice.” A 2008 Gallup poll found that 64% say that they have a favorable image of Israel while only 16% say that they have a favorable image of the Palestinian Authority. Within the party, the majority view is held by the Democratic leadership although some members such as John Conyers Jr., George Miller, Nick Rahall, Dave Obey, Pete Stark, Dennis Kucinich, Jim McDermott, and Cynthia McKinney as well as former President Jimmy Carter are less or not supportive of Israel. The party leadership refers to the other side as a "fringe".

The 2008 Democratic Party Platform acknowledges a "special relationship with Israel, grounded in shared interests and shared values, and a clear, strong, fundamental commitment to the security of Israel, our strongest ally in the region and its only established democracy." It also included:

It is in the best interests of all parties, including the United States, that we take an active role to help secure a lasting settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a democratic, viable Palestinian state dedicated to living in peace and security side by side with the Jewish State of Israel. To do so, we must help Israel identify and strengthen those partners who are truly committed to peace, while isolating those who seek conflict and instability, and stand with Israel against those who seek its destruction. The United States and its Quartet partners should continue to isolate Hamas until it renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel’s right to exist, and abides by past agreements. Sustained American leadership for peace and security will require patient efforts and the personal commitment of the President of the United States. The creation of a Palestinian state through final status negotiations, together with an international compensation mechanism, should resolve the issue of Palestinian refugees by allowing them to settle there, rather than in Israel. All understand that it is unrealistic to expect the outcome of final status negotiations to be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949. Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel. The parties have agreed that Jerusalem is a matter for final status negotiations. It should remain an undivided city accessible to people of all faiths.

A January 2009 Pew Research Center study found that, when asked "which side do you sympathize with more", 42% of Democrats and 33% of liberals (a plurality in both groups) sympathize most with the Israelis. Around half of all political moderates and/or independents sided with Israel.

Iraq War

In 2002, Democrats were divided as a majority (29 for, 21 against) in the Senate and a minority of Democrats in the House (81 for, 126 against) voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq. Since then, many prominent Democrats, such as former Senator John Edwards, have expressed regret about this decision, and have called it a mistake, while others, such as Senator Hillary Clinton have criticized the conduct of the war but not repudiated their initial vote for it (though Clinton later went on to repudiate her stance during the 2008 primaries). Referring to Iraq, in April 2007 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared the war to be "lost" while other Democrats (especially during the 2004 presidential election cycle) accused the President of lying to the public about WMDs in Iraq. Amongst lawmakers, Democrats are the most vocal opponents of Operation Iraqi Freedom and campaigned on a platform of withdrawal ahead of the 2006 mid-term elections.

A March 2003 CBS News poll taken a few days before the invasion of Iraq found that 34% of Democrats would support it without United Nations backing, 51% would support it only with its backing, and 14% would not support it at all. ''The Los Angeles Times'' stated in early April 2003 that 70% of Democrats supported the decision to invade while 27% opposed it. The Pew Research Center stated in August 2007 that opposition increased from 37% during the initial invasion to 74%. In April 2008, a CBS News poll found that about 90% of Democrats disapprove of the Bush administration's conduct and want to end the war within the next year.

Democrats in the House of Representatives near-unanimously supported a non-binding resolution disapproving of President Bush's decision to send additional troops into Iraq in 2007. Congressional Democrats overwhelmingly supported military funding legislation that included a provision that set "a timeline for the withdrawal of all US combat troops from Iraq" by March 31, 2008, but also would leave combat forces in Iraq for purposes such as targeted counter-terrorism operations. After a veto from the president, and a failed attempt in Congress to override the veto, the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007 was passed by Congress and signed by the president after the timetable was dropped. Criticism of the Iraq War subsided after the Iraq War troop surge of 2007 led to a dramatic decrease in Iraqi violence. The Democratic-controlled 110th Congress continued to fund efforts in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Presidential candidate Barack Obama advocated a withdrawal of combat troops within Iraq by late 2010 with a residual force of peacekeeping troops left in place. He stated that both the speed of withdrawal and the amount of troops left over would be "entirely conditions-based."

On February 27, 2009, President Obama announced, “As a candidate for president, I made clear my support for a timeline of 16 months to carry out this drawdown, while pledging to consult closely with our military commanders upon taking office to ensure that we preserve the gains we’ve made and protect our troops... Those consultations are now complete, and I have chosen a timeline that will remove our combat brigades over the next 18 months." Around 50,000 non-combat related forces will remain. Obama's plan drew wide bipartisan support, including that of defeated Republican Presidential candidate Senator John McCain.

Unilateralism

Democrats usually oppose the doctrine of unilateralism, which dictates that the United States should use military force without any assistance from other nations whenever it believes there is a threat to its security or welfare. They believe the United States should act in the international arena in concert with strong alliances and broad international support. This was a major foreign policy issue of John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign; his platform attributed rifts with international allies to unilateralism. Barack Obama's 2008 campaign also discussed promoting the image of the United States abroad.

In a general sense, the modern Democratic Party is more closely aligned with the international relations theories of liberalism, neoliberalism, and functionalism than realism and neorealism, though realism has some influence on the party. Wilsonian idealism, in which unilateral foreign intervention is justified to end genocide or other humanitarian crises, has also played a major role both historically and currently- with its supporters known as 'liberal hawks'.

Political status of Puerto Rico

The Democratic Party has expressed its support for the U.S. Citizens of Puerto Rico to exercise their right to self-determination. Puerto Rico has been under U.S. sovereignty for over a century and Puerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens since 1917, but the island’s ultimate status still has not been determined and its 3.9 million residents still do not have voting representation in their national government. Also states that U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico should receive treatment under federal programs that is comparable to that of citizens in the States. The following are the appropriate section from the 2000, 2004 and 2008 party platforms:

Legal issues

Torture

Many Democrats are opposed to the use of torture against individuals apprehended and held prisoner by the U.S. military, and hold that categorizing such prisoners as unlawful combatants does not release the U.S. from its obligations under the Geneva Conventions. Democrats contend that torture is inhumane, decreases the United States' moral standing in the world, and produces questionable results. Democrats largely spoke out against waterboarding.

USA PATRIOT Act

All but two Democrats in the U.S. Senate voted for the original USA PATRIOT Act legislation in 2001. The lone nay vote was from Russ Feingold of Wisconsin; Mary Landrieu of Louisiana did not vote. In the House the Democrats voted for the Act by 145 yea and 62 nay. Democrats split on the renewal in 2006. In the Senate, Democrats voted 34 for the 2006 renewal, and 9 against. In the House, Democrats voted 66 voted for the renewal, and 124 against.

Right to privacy

The Democratic Party believes that individuals should have a right to privacy. For example, Democrats have generally opposed the NSA warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens.

Some Democratic officeholders have championed consumer protection laws that limit the sharing of consumer data between corporations. Most Democrats oppose sodomy laws and believe that government should not regulate consensual noncommercial sexual conduct among adults as a matter of personal privacy.

Gun control

With a stated goal of reducing crime and homicide, the Democratic Party has introduced various gun control measures, most notably the Gun Control Act of 1968, the Brady Bill of 1993, and Crime Control Act of 1994. However, some Democrats, especially rural, Southern, and Western Democrats, favor fewer restrictions on firearm possession and warned the party was defeated in the 2000 presidential election in rural areas because of the issue. In the national platform for 2008, the only statement explicitly favoring gun control was a plan calling for renewal of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban.

Death penalty

The Democratic Party supports the death penalty far less than the Republican Party. Though most Democrats in Congress have never seriously moved to overturn the rarely used federal death penalty, both Russ Feingold and Dennis Kucinich have introduced such bills with little success. Democrats have led efforts to overturn state death penalty laws, particularly in New Jersey and in New Mexico. They have also sought to prevent reinstatement of the death penalty in those states which currently prohibit it, including Massachusetts and New York. During the Clinton administration, Democrats led the expansion of the federal death penalty. These efforts resulted in the passage of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Signed into law by President Clinton, the law heavily limited appeals in death penalty cases.

In 1992, 1993, and 1995, Democratic Texas Congressman Henry González unsuccessfully introduced the Death Penalty Abolition Amendment which prohibited the use of capital punishment in the United States. Democratic Missouri Congressman William Lacy Clay, Sr. cosponsored the amendment in 1993.

During his Illinois Senate career, now-President Barack Obama successfully introduced legislation intended to reduce the likelihood of wrongful convictions in capital cases, requiring videotaping of confessions. When campaigning for the presidency, Obama stated that he supports the limited use of the death penalty, including for people who have been convicted of raping a minor under the age of 12, having opposed the Supreme Court's ruling in ''Kennedy v. Louisiana'' that the death penalty was unconstitutional in child rape cases. Obama has stated that he thinks the "death penalty does little to deter crime", and that it is used too frequently and too inconsistently.

Name and symbols

Initially calling itself the "Republican Party," Jeffersonians were labeled "Democratic" by the opposition Federalists, with the hope of stigmatizing them as purveyors of democracy or mob rule. By the Jacksonian era, the term "The Democracy" was in use by the party; the name "Democratic Party" was eventually settled upon. In the 20th and 21st centuries, "Democrat Party" is a political epithet that is sometimes used by opponents to refer to the party. The current official name of the party is the Democratic Party.

The most common mascot symbol for the party is the donkey, although the party never officially adopted this symbol. Andrew Jackson's opponents had labeled him a jackass during the intense mudslinging in 1828. A political cartoon titled "A Modern Balaam and his Ass" depicting Jackson riding and directing a donkey (representing the Democratic Party) was published in 1837. A political cartoon by Thomas Nast in an 1870 edition of ''Harper's Weekly'' revived the donkey as a symbol for the Democratic Party. Cartoonists followed Nast and used the donkey to represent the Democrats, and the elephant to represent the Republicans.

In the early 20th century, the traditional symbol of the Democratic Party in Midwestern states such as Indiana, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Ohio was the rooster, as opposed to the Republican eagle. This symbol still appears on Oklahoma, Kentucky, Indiana, and West Virginia ballots. In New York, the Democratic ballot symbol is a five-pointed star. For the majority of the 20th century, Missouri Democrats used the Statue of Liberty as their ballot emblem. This meant that when Libertarian candidates received ballot access in Missouri in 1976, they could not use the Statue of Liberty, their national symbol, as the ballot emblem. Missouri Libertarians instead used the Liberty Bell until 1995, when the mule became Missouri's state animal. From 1995 to 2004, there was some confusion among voters, as the Democratic ticket was marked with the Statue of Liberty (used by Libertarians in other states) and the Libertarians' mule was easily mistaken for a Democratic donkey.

Although both major political parties (and many minor ones) use the traditional American red, white, and blue colors in their marketing and representations, since election night 2000 the color blue has become the identified color of the Democratic Party, while the color red has become the identified color of the Republican Party. That night, for the first time, all major broadcast television networks used the same color scheme for the electoral map: blue states for Al Gore (Democratic nominee) and red states for George W. Bush (Republican nominee). Since then, the color blue has been widely used by the media to represent the party. This has caused confusion among non-American observers because blue is the traditional color of the right and red the color of the left outside of the United States. For example, in Canada red represents the Liberals, while blue represents the Conservatives. In the United Kingdom, red denotes the Labour Party and blue symbolizes the Conservative Party. Blue has also been used both by party supporters for promotional efforts — ActBlue, BuyBlue, BlueFund, as examples — and by the party itself in 2006 both for its "Red to Blue Program", created to support Democratic candidates running against Republican incumbents in the midterm elections that year, and on its official website.

In September, 2010, the Democratic Party unveiled its new logo, which featured a blue D inside a blue circle. It was the party's first official logo, as the donkey logo had been used as a semi-official party logo.

Jefferson-Jackson Day is the annual fundraising event (dinner) held by Democratic Party organizations across the United States. It is named after Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, whom the party regards as its distinguished early leaders.

The song "Happy Days Are Here Again" is the unofficial song of the Democratic Party. It was used prominently when Franklin D. Roosevelt was nominated for president at the 1932 Democratic National Convention and remains a sentimental favorite for Democrats today. For example, Paul Shaffer played the theme on the Late Show with David Letterman after the Democrats won Congress in 2006. More recently, the emotionally similar song "Beautiful Day" by the band U2 has become a favorite theme song for Democratic candidates. John Kerry used the song during his 2004 presidential campaign, and several Democratic Congressional candidates used it as a celebratory tune in 2006. Aaron Copland's ''Fanfare for the Common Man'' is traditionally performed at the beginning of the Democratic National Convention.

State and territorial parties

Alabama Democratic Party (Site)

Alaska Democratic Party (Site)

Arizona Democratic Party (Site)

Democratic Party of Arkansas (Site)

California Democratic Party (Site)

Colorado Democratic Party (Site)

Democratic State Central Committee of Connecticut (Site)

Delaware Democratic Party (Site)

District of Columbia Democratic State Committee (Site)

Florida Democratic Party (Site)

Democratic Party of Georgia (Site)

Democratic Party of Hawaii (Site)

Idaho Democratic Party (Site)

Democratic Party of Illinois (Site)

Indiana Democratic Party (Site)

Iowa Democratic Party (Site)

Kansas Democratic Party (Site)

Kentucky Democratic Party (Site)

Louisiana Democratic Party (Site)

Maine Democratic Party (Site)

Maryland Democratic Party (Site)

Massachusetts Democratic Party (Site)

Michigan Democratic Party (Site)

Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (Site)

Democratic Party of the State of Mississippi (Site)

Missouri Democratic Party (Site)

Montana Democratic Party (Site)

Nebraska Democratic Party (Site)

Nevada Democratic Party (Site)

New Hampshire Democratic Party ( Site)

New Jersey Democratic State Committee (Site)

Democratic Party of New Mexico (Site)

New York State Democratic Committee (Site)

North Carolina Democratic Party ( Site)

North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party (Site)

Ohio Democratic Party (Site)

Oklahoma Democratic Party (Site)

Democratic Party of Oregon (Site)

Pennsylvania Democratic Party (Site)

Puerto Rico Democratic Party (Site)

Rhode Island Democratic Committee (Site)

South Carolina Democratic Party (Site)

South Dakota Democratic Party (Site)

Tennessee Democratic Party (Site)

Texas Democratic Party (Site)

Utah Democratic Party (Site)

Vermont Democratic Party (Site)

Democratic Party of Virginia (Site)

Washington State Democratic Party (Site)

West Virginia Democratic Party (Site)

Democratic Party of Wisconsin (Site)

Wyoming Democratic Party (Site)

See also

List of United States Democratic Party presidential tickets

Democratic organizations

Factions in the Democratic Party (United States)

Politics of the United States - Organization of American political parties

Political party strength in U.S. states

2008 Democratic National Convention

Atari Democrat

National Jewish Democratic Council

References

External links

Organizations

Democrats.org — Official website of the Democratic National Committee

Democratic Senate Caucus

Democratic House Caucus

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee

Democratic Governors Association

Democratic Attorneys General Association

National Conference of Democratic Mayors

National Federation of Democratic Women

College Democrats of America

Young Democrats of America

Democrats Abroad

Progressive Democrats of America

Democrats.com — "Aggressive Progressive" Democrats, not to be confused with the official Democratic Party site Democrats.org

General

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Category:Political parties established in 1792 Category:Political parties in the United States * Category:Liberal parties Category:1792 establishments in the United States

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Name	Hillary Rodham Clinton
Office	67th United States Secretary of State
President	Barack Obama
Deputy	James SteinbergWilliam Burns
Term start	January 21, 2009
Predecessor	Condoleezza Rice
Jr/sr2	United States Senator
State2	New York
Term start2	January 3, 2001
Term end2	January 21, 2009
Preceded2	Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Succeeded2	Kirsten Gillibrand
Office3	First Lady of the United States
Term start3	January 20, 1993
Term end3	January 20, 2001
Preceded3	Barbara Bush
Succeeded3	Laura Bush
Office4	First Lady of Arkansas
Term start4	January 11, 1983
Term end4	December 12, 1992
Predecessor4	Gay Daniels White
Successor4	Betty Tucker
Term start5	January 9, 1979
Term end5	January 19, 1981
Predecessor5	Barbara Pryor
Successor5	Gay Daniels White
Birth date	October 26, 1947
Birth place	Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Party	Democratic Party
Relations	Hugh E. Rodham (father, deceased)Dorothy Howell Rodham (mother)Hugh Rodham (brother)Tony Rodham (brother)
Spouse	Bill Clinton
Children	Chelsea
Residence	Chappaqua, New York, United States
Alma mater	Wellesley College (B.A.)Yale Law School (J.D.)
Profession	Lawyer
Religion	Methodist
Signature	Hillary Rodham Clinton Signature.svg
Website	Official website }}

Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton (; born October 26, 1947) is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, she was the First Lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001. In the 2008 election, Clinton was a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

A native of Illinois, Hillary Rodham first attracted national attention in 1969 for her remarks as the first student commencement speaker at Wellesley College. She embarked on a career in law after graduating from Yale Law School in 1973. Following a stint as a Congressional legal counsel, she moved to Arkansas in 1974 and married Bill Clinton in 1975. Rodham cofounded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families in 1977 and became the first female chair of the Legal Services Corporation in 1978. Named the first female partner at Rose Law Firm in 1979, she was twice listed as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America. First Lady of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992 with husband Bill as Governor, she successfully led a task force to reform Arkansas's education system. She sat on the board of directors of Wal-Mart and several other corporations.

In 1994 as First Lady of the United States, her major initiative, the Clinton health care plan, failed to gain approval from the U.S. Congress. However, in 1997 and 1999, Clinton played a role in advocating the creation of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, the Adoption and Safe Families Act, and the Foster Care Independence Act. Her years as First Lady drew a polarized response from the American public. The only First Lady to have been subpoenaed, she testified before a federal grand jury in 1996 due to the Whitewater controversy, but was never charged with wrongdoing in this or several other investigations during her husband's administration. The state of her marriage was the subject of considerable speculation following the Lewinsky scandal in 1998.

After moving to the state of New York, Clinton was elected as a U.S. Senator in 2000. That election marked the first time an American First Lady had run for public office; Clinton was also the first female senator to represent the state. In the Senate, she initially supported the Bush administration on some foreign policy issues, including a vote for the Iraq War Resolution. She subsequently opposed the administration on its conduct of the war in Iraq and on most domestic issues. Senator Clinton was reelected by a wide margin in 2006. In the 2008 presidential nomination race, Hillary Clinton won more primaries and delegates than any other female candidate in American history, but narrowly lost to Illinois Senator Barack Obama.

As Secretary of State, Clinton became the first former First Lady to serve in a president's cabinet. She has put into place institutional changes seeking to maximize departmental effectiveness and promote the empowerment of women worldwide, and has set records for most-traveled secretary for time in office. She has been at the forefront of the U.S. response to the 2011 Middle East protests, including advocating for the military intervention in Libya.

Early life and education

Early life

Hillary Diane Rodham was born at Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. She was raised in a United Methodist family, first in Chicago and then, from the age of three, in suburban Park Ridge, Illinois. Her father, Hugh Ellsworth Rodham, was the son of Welsh and English immigrants; he managed a successful small business in the textile industry. Her mother, Dorothy Emma Howell, is a homemaker of English, Scottish, French, French Canadian, and Welsh descent. She has two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony.

As a child, Hillary Rodham was a teacher's favorite at her public schools in Park Ridge. She participated in swimming, baseball, and other sports. She also earned numerous awards as a Brownie and Girl Scout. She attended Maine East High School, where she participated in student council, the school newspaper, and was selected for National Honor Society. For her senior year, she was redistricted to Maine South High School, where she was a National Merit Finalist and graduated in the top five percent of her class of 1965. Her mother wanted her to have an independent, professional career, and her father, otherwise a traditionalist, held the modern notion that his daughter's abilities and opportunities should not be limited by gender.

Raised in a politically conservative household, at age thirteen Rodham helped canvass South Side Chicago following the very close 1960 U.S. presidential election, where she found evidence of electoral fraud against Republican candidate Richard Nixon. She then volunteered to campaign for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater in the U.S. presidential election of 1964. Rodham's early political development was shaped most by her high school history teacher (like her father, a fervent anticommunist), who introduced her to Goldwater's classic ''The Conscience of a Conservative'', and by her Methodist youth minister (like her mother, concerned with issues of social justice), with whom she saw and met civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., in Chicago in 1962.

College

In 1965, Rodham enrolled at Wellesley College, where she majored in political science. During her freshman year, she served as president of the Wellesley Young Republicans; with this Rockefeller Republican-oriented group, she supported the elections of John Lindsay and Edward Brooke. She later stepped down from this position, as her views changed regarding the American Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. In a letter to her youth minister at this time, she described herself as "a mind conservative and a heart liberal." In contrast to the 1960s current that advocated radical actions against the political system, she sought to work for change within it. In her junior year, Rodham became a supporter of the antiwar presidential nomination campaign of Democrat Eugene McCarthy. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Rodham organized a two-day student strike and worked with Wellesley's black students to recruit more black students and faculty. In early 1968, she was elected president of the Wellesley College Government Association and served through early 1969; she was instrumental in keeping Wellesley from being embroiled in the student disruptions common to other colleges. A number of her fellow students thought she might some day become the first woman President of the United States. So she could better understand her changing political views, Professor Alan Schechter assigned Rodham to intern at the House Republican Conference, and she attended the "Wellesley in Washington" summer program. Rodham was invited by moderate New York Republican Representative Charles Goodell to help Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s late-entry campaign for the Republican nomination. Rodham attended the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami. However, she was upset by how Richard Nixon's campaign portrayed Rockefeller and by what she perceived as the convention's "veiled" racist messages, and left the Republican Party for good.

Returning to Wellesley for her final year, Rodham wrote her senior thesis about the tactics of radical community organizer Saul Alinsky under Professor Schechter (years later while she was First Lady, access to the thesis was restricted at the request of the White House and it became the subject of some speculation). In 1969, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, with departmental honors in political science. Following pressure from some fellow students, she became the first student in Wellesley College history to deliver its commencement address. Her speech received a standing ovation lasting seven minutes. 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. She also appeared on Irv Kupcinet's nationally syndicated television talk show as well as in Illinois and New England newspapers. That summer, she worked her way across Alaska, washing dishes in Mount McKinley National Park and sliming salmon in a fish processing cannery in Valdez (which fired her and shut down overnight when she complained about unhealthy conditions).

Law school

Rodham then entered Yale Law School, where she served on the editorial board of the ''Yale Review of Law and Social Action''. During her second year, she worked at the Yale Child Study Center, learning about new research on early childhood brain development and working as a research assistant on the seminal work, ''Beyond the Best Interests of the Child'' (1973). She also took on cases of child abuse at Yale-New Haven Hospital and volunteered at New Haven Legal Services to provide free legal advice for the poor. In the summer of 1970, she was awarded a grant to work at Marian Wright Edelman's Washington Research Project, where she was assigned to Senator Walter Mondale's Subcommittee on Migratory Labor. There she researched migrant workers' problems in housing, sanitation, health and education. Edelman later became a significant mentor. She was recruited by political advisor Anne Wexler to work on the 1970 campaign of Connecticut U.S. Senate candidate Joseph Duffey, with Rodham later crediting Wexler with providing her first job in politics.

In the late spring of 1971, she began dating Bill Clinton, also a law student at Yale. That summer, she interned at the Oakland, California, law firm of Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein. The firm was well-known for its support of constitutional rights, civil liberties, and radical causes (two of its four partners were current or former Communist Party members); Rodham worked on child custody and other cases. Clinton canceled his original summer plans, in order to live with her in California; the couple continued living together in New Haven when they returned to law school. The following summer, Rodham and Clinton campaigned in Texas for unsuccessful 1972 Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern. She received a Juris Doctor degree from Yale in 1973, having stayed on an extra year to be with Clinton. Clinton first proposed marriage to her following graduation, but she declined. She began a year of postgraduate study on children and medicine at the Yale Child Study Center. Her first scholarly article, "Children Under the Law", was published in the ''Harvard Educational Review'' in late 1973. Discussing the new children's rights movement, it stated that "child citizens" were "powerless individuals" and argued that children should not be considered equally incompetent from birth to attaining legal age, but that instead courts should presume competence except when there is evidence otherwise, on a case-by-case basis. The article became frequently cited in the field.

Marriage and family, law career and First Lady of Arkansas

From the East Coast to Arkansas

During her postgraduate study, Rodham served as staff attorney for Edelman's newly founded Children's Defense Fund in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and as a consultant to the Carnegie Council on Children. During 1974, she was a member of the impeachment inquiry staff in Washington, D.C., advising the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate scandal. Under the guidance of Chief Counsel John Doar and senior member Bernard Nussbaum, Rodham helped research procedures of impeachment and the historical grounds and standards for impeachment. The committee's work culminated in the resignation of President Richard Nixon in August 1974.

By then, Rodham was viewed as someone with a bright political future; Democratic political organizer and consultant Betsey Wright had moved from Texas to Washington the previous year to help guide her career; Wright thought Rodham had the potential to become a future senator or president. Meanwhile, Clinton had repeatedly asked her to marry him, and she continued to demur. However, after failing the District of Columbia bar exam and passing the Arkansas exam, Rodham came to a key decision. As she later wrote, "I chose to follow my heart instead of my head". She thus followed Bill Clinton to Arkansas, rather than staying in Washington where career prospects were brighter. Clinton was then teaching law and running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in his home state. In August 1974, she moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, and became one of only two female faculty members in the School of Law at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, where Bill Clinton also was. She gave classes in criminal law, where she was considered a rigorous teacher and tough grader, and was the first director of the school's legal aid clinic. She still harbored doubts about marriage, concerned that her separate identity would be lost and that her accomplishments would be viewed in the light of someone else's.

Early Arkansas years

Hillary Rodham and Bill Clinton bought a house in Fayetteville in the summer of 1975, and Hillary finally agreed to marry. Their wedding took place on October 11, 1975, in a Methodist ceremony in their living room. She announced she was keeping the name Hillary Rodham, to keep their professional lives separate and avoid apparent conflicts of interest and because "it showed that I was still me," although her decision upset their mothers. Bill Clinton had lost the congressional race in 1974, but in November 1976 was elected Arkansas Attorney General, and so the couple moved to the state capital of Little Rock. There, in February 1977, Rodham joined the venerable Rose Law Firm, a bastion of Arkansan political and economic influence. She specialized in patent infringement and intellectual property law while also working ''pro bono'' in child advocacy; she rarely performed litigation work in court.

Rodham maintained her interest in children's law and family policy, publishing the scholarly articles "Children's Policies: Abandonment and Neglect" in 1977 and "Children's Rights: A Legal Perspective" in 1979. The latter continued her argument that children's legal competence depended upon their age and other circumstances and that in serious medical rights cases, judicial intervention was sometimes warranted. An American Bar Association chair later said, "Her articles were important, not because they were radically new but because they helped formulate something that had been inchoate." Historian Garry Wills would later describe her as "one of the more important scholar-activists of the last two decades", while conservatives said her theories would usurp traditional parental authority, allow children to file frivolous lawsuits against their parents, and argued that her work was legal "crit" theory run amok.

In 1977, Rodham cofounded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, a state-level alliance with the Children's Defense Fund. Later that year, President Jimmy Carter (for whom Rodham had been the 1976 campaign director of field operations in Indiana) appointed her to the board of directors of the Legal Services Corporation, and she served in that capacity from 1978 until the end of 1981. From mid-1978 to mid-1980, she served as the chair of that board, the first woman to do so. During her time as chair, funding for the Corporation was expanded from $90 million to $300 million; subsequently she successfully fought President Ronald Reagan's attempts to reduce the funding and change the nature of the organization.

Following her husband's November 1978 election as Governor of Arkansas, Rodham became First Lady of Arkansas in January 1979, her title for twelve years (1979–1981, 1983–1992). Clinton appointed her chair of the Rural Health Advisory Committee the same year, where she successfully secured federal funds to expand medical facilities in Arkansas's poorest areas without affecting doctors' fees.

In 1979, Rodham became the first woman to be made a full partner of Rose Law Firm. From 1978 until they entered the White House, she had a higher salary than her husband. During 1978 and 1979, while looking to supplement their income, Rodham made a spectacular profit from trading cattle futures contracts; an initial $1,000 investment generated nearly $100,000 when she stopped trading after ten months. The couple also began their ill-fated investment in the Whitewater Development Corporation real estate venture with Jim and Susan McDougal at this time.

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 reelection.

Later Arkansas years

Bill Clinton returned to the governor's office two years later by winning the election of 1982. During her husband's campaign, Rodham began to use the name Hillary Clinton, or sometimes "Mrs. Bill Clinton", to assuage the concerns of Arkansas voters; she also took a leave of absence from Rose Law to campaign for him full-time. As First Lady of Arkansas, Hillary Clinton was named chair of the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee in 1983, where she sought to reform the state's court-sanctioned public education system. In one of the Clinton governorship's most important initiatives, she fought a prolonged but ultimately successful battle against the Arkansas Education Association, to establish mandatory teacher testing and state standards for curriculum and classroom size. In 1985, she also introduced Arkansas's 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.

Clinton continued to practice law with the Rose Law Firm while she was First Lady of Arkansas. She earned less than the other partners, as she billed fewer hours, but still made more than $200,000 in her final year there. She seldom did trial work, but the firm considered her a "rainmaker" because she brought in clients, partly thanks to the prestige she lent the firm and to her corporate board connections. She was also very influential in the appointment of state judges. Bill Clinton's Republican opponent in his 1986 gubernatorial reelection campaign accused the Clintons of conflict of interest, because Rose Law did state business; the Clintons deflected the charge by saying that state fees were walled off by the firm before her profits were calculated.

From 1982 to 1988, Clinton was on board of directors, sometimes as chair, of the New World Foundation, which funded a variety of New Left interest groups. From 1987 to 1991, she chaired the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession, which addressed gender bias in the law profession and induced the association to adopt measures to combat it. She was twice named by the ''National Law Journal'' as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America: in 1988 and in 1991. When Bill Clinton thought about not running again for governor in 1990, Hillary considered running, but private polls were unfavorable and, in the end, he ran and was reelected for the final time.

Clinton served on the boards of the Arkansas Children's Hospital Legal Services (1988–1992) and the Children's Defense Fund (as chair, 1986–1992). In addition to her positions with nonprofit organizations, she also held positions on the corporate board of directors of TCBY (1985–1992), Wal-Mart Stores (1986–1992) and Lafarge (1990–1992). TCBY and Wal-Mart were Arkansas-based companies that were also clients of Rose Law. Clinton was the first female member on Wal-Mart's board, added following pressure on chairman Sam Walton to name a woman to the board. Once there, she pushed successfully for Wal-Mart to adopt more environmentally friendly practices, was largely unsuccessful in a campaign for more women to be added to the company's management, and was silent about the company's famously anti-labor union practices.

Bill Clinton presidential campaign of 1992

Hillary Clinton received sustained national attention for the first time when her husband became a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination of 1992. Before the New Hampshire primary, tabloid publications printed claims that Bill Clinton had had an extramarital affair with Arkansas lounge singer Gennifer Flowers. In response, the Clintons appeared together on ''60 Minutes'', where Bill Clinton denied the affair but acknowledged "causing pain in my marriage." This joint appearance was credited with rescuing his campaign. During the campaign, Hillary Clinton made culturally disparaging remarks about Tammy Wynette and her outlook on marriage, and about women staying home and baking cookies and having teas, that were ill-considered by her own admission. Bill Clinton said that in electing him, the nation would "get two for the price of one", referring to the prominent role his wife would assume. Beginning with Daniel Wattenberg's August 1992 ''The American Spectator'' article "The Lady Macbeth of Little Rock", Hillary Clinton's own past ideological and ethical record came under conservative attack. At least twenty other articles in major publications also drew comparisons between her and Lady Macbeth.

First Lady of the United States

Role as First Lady

When Bill Clinton took office as president in January 1993, Hillary Rodham Clinton became the First Lady of the United States, and announced that she would be using that form of her name. She was the first First Lady to hold a postgraduate degree and to have her own professional career up to the time of entering the White House. She was also the first to have an office in the West Wing of the White House in addition to the usual First Lady offices in the East Wing. She was part of the innermost circle vetting appointments to the new administration, and her choices filled at least eleven top-level positions and dozens more lower-level ones. She is regarded as the most openly empowered presidential wife in American history, save for Eleanor Roosevelt.

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. Bill Clinton's campaign promise of "two for the price of one" led opponents to refer derisively to the Clintons as "co-presidents", or sometimes the Arkansas label "Billary". The pressures of conflicting ideas about the role of a First Lady were enough to send Clinton into "imaginary discussions" with the also-politically-active Eleanor Roosevelt. from the time she came to Washington, she also found refuge in a prayer group of The Fellowship that featured many wives of conservative Washington figures. Triggered in part by the death of her father in April 1993, she publicly sought to find a synthesis of Methodist teachings, liberal religious political philosophy, and ''Tikkun'' editor Michael Lerner's "politics of meaning" to overcome what she saw as America's "sleeping sickness of the soul" and that would lead to a willingness "to remold society by redefining what it means to be a human being in the twentieth century, moving into a new millennium." Other segments of the public focused on her appearance, which had evolved over time from inattention to fashion during her days in Arkansas, to a popular site in the early days of the World Wide Web devoted to showing her many different, and frequently analyzed, hairstyles as First Lady, to an appearance on the cover of ''Vogue'' magazine in 1998.

Health care and other policy initiatives

[[File:HillaryGallup1992-1996.PNG|thumb|300px|right|Hillary Rodham Clinton's Gallup Poll favorable and unfavorable ratings, 1992–1996 ]] In January 1993, Bill Clinton appointed Hillary Clinton to head the Task Force on National Health Care Reform, hoping to replicate the success she had in leading the effort for Arkansas education reform. She privately urged that passage of health care reform be given higher priority than the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (which she was also unenthusiastic about the merits of). The recommendation of the task force became known as the Clinton health care plan, a comprehensive proposal that would require employers to provide health coverage to their employees through individual health maintenance organizations. Its opponents quickly derided the plan as "Hillarycare"; some protesters against it became vitriolic, and during a July 1994 bus tour to rally support for the plan, she was forced to wear a bulletproof vest at times.

The plan did not receive enough support for a floor vote in either the House or the Senate, although Democrats controlled both chambers, and the proposal was abandoned in September 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. The First Lady's approval ratings, which had generally been in the high-50s percent range during her first year, fell to 44 percent in April 1994 and 35 percent by September 1994. Republicans made the Clinton health care plan a major campaign issue of the 1994 midterm elections, which saw a net Republican gain of fifty-three seats in the House election and seven in the Senate election, winning control of both; many analysts and pollsters found the plan to be a major factor in the Democrats' defeat, especially among independent voters. The White House subsequently sought to downplay Hillary Clinton's role in shaping policy. Opponents of universal health care would continue to use "Hillarycare" as a pejorative label for similar plans by others.

Along with Senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, she was a force behind the passage of the State Children's Health Insurance Program in 1997, a federal effort that provided state support for children whose parents could not provide them with health coverage, and conducted outreach efforts on behalf of enrolling children in the program once it became law. She promoted nationwide immunization against childhood illnesses and encouraged older women to seek a mammogram to detect breast cancer, with coverage provided by Medicare. She successfully sought to increase research funding for prostate cancer and childhood asthma at the National Institutes of Health. 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. Together with Attorney General Janet Reno, Clinton helped create the Office on Violence Against Women at the Department of Justice. In 1997, she initiated and shepherded the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which she regarded as her greatest accomplishment as First Lady. In 1999, she was instrumental in the passage of the Foster Care Independence Act, which doubled federal monies for teenagers aging out of foster care. As First Lady, Clinton hosted numerous White House conferences, including ones on Child Care (1997), on Early Childhood Development and Learning (1997), and on Children and Adolescents (2000). She also hosted the first-ever White House Conference on Teenagers (2000) and the first-ever White House Conference on Philanthropy (1999).

Clinton traveled to 79 countries during this time, breaking the mark for most-traveled First Lady held by Pat Nixon. She did not hold a security clearance or attend National Security Council meetings, but played a soft power role in U.S. diplomacy. A March 1995 five-nation trip to South Asia, on behest of the U.S. State Department and without her husband, sought to improve relations with India and Pakistan. Clinton was troubled by the plight of women she encountered, but found a warm response from the people of the countries she visited and a gained better relationship with the American press corps. The trip was a transformative experience for her and presaged her eventual career in diplomacy. 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 the People's Republic of China itself, declaring "that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights". Delegates from over 180 countries heard her say: "If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights, once and for all." In doing so, she resisted both internal administration and Chinese pressure to soften her remarks. She was one of the most prominent international figures during the late 1990s to speak out against the treatment of Afghan women by the Islamist fundamentalist Taliban. 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. It and Clinton's own visits encouraged women to make themselves heard in the Northern Ireland peace process.

Whitewater and other investigations

The Whitewater controversy was the focus of media attention from the publication of a ''New York Times'' report during the 1992 presidential campaign, and throughout her time as First Lady. The Clintons had lost their late-1970s investment in the Whitewater Development Corporation; at the same time, their partners in that investment, Jim and Susan McDougal, operated Madison Guaranty, a savings and loan institution that retained the legal services of Rose Law Firm and may have been improperly subsidizing Whitewater losses. Madison Guaranty later failed, and Clinton's work at Rose was scrutinized for a possible conflict of interest in representing the bank before state regulators that her husband had appointed; she claimed she had done minimal work for the bank. Independent counsels Robert Fiske and Kenneth Starr subpoenaed Clinton's legal billing records; she said she did not know where they were. The records were found in the First Lady's White House book room after a two-year search, and delivered to investigators in early 1996. The delayed appearance of the records sparked intense interest and another investigation about how they surfaced and where they had been; Clinton's staff attributed the problem to continual changes in White House storage areas since the move from the Arkansas Governor's Mansion. After the discovery of the records, on January 26, 1996, Clinton made history by becoming the first First Lady to be subpoenaed to testify before a Federal grand jury. After several Independent Counsels had investigated, a final report was issued in 2000 that stated there was insufficient evidence that either Clinton had engaged in criminal wrongdoing.

Other investigations took place during Hillary Clinton's time as First Lady. Scrutiny of the May 1993 firings of the White House Travel Office employees, an affair that became known as "Travelgate", began with charges that the White House had used audited financial irregularities in the Travel Office operation as an excuse to replace the staff with friends from Arkansas. The 1996 discovery of a two-year-old White House memo caused the investigation to focus more on whether Hillary Clinton had orchestrated the firings and whether the statements she made to investigators about her role in the firings were true. The 2000 final Independent Counsel report concluded she was involved in the firings and that she had made "factually false" statements, but that there was insufficient evidence that she knew the statements were false, or knew that her actions would lead to firings, to prosecute her. Following deputy White House counsel Vince Foster's July 1993 suicide, allegations were made that Hillary Clinton had ordered the removal of potentially damaging files (related to Whitewater or other matters) from Foster's office on the night of his death. Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr investigated this, and by 1999, Starr was reported to be holding the investigation open, despite his staff having told him there was no case to be made. When Starr's successor Robert Ray issued his final Whitewater reports in 2000, no claims were made against Hillary Clinton regarding this.

In March 1994 newspaper reports revealed her spectacular profits from cattle futures trading in 1978–1979; allegations were made in the press of conflict of interest and disguised bribery, and several individuals analyzed her trading records, but no formal investigation was made and she was never charged with any wrongdoing. An outgrowth of the Travelgate investigation was the June 1996 discovery of improper White House access to hundreds of FBI background reports on former Republican White House employees, an affair that some called "Filegate". Accusations were made that Hillary Clinton had requested these files and that she had recommended hiring an unqualified individual to head the White House Security Office. The 2000 final Independent Counsel report found no substantial or credible evidence that Hillary Clinton had any role or showed any misconduct in the matter.

Lewinsky scandal

[[File:HillaryGallup1997-2000.PNG|thumb|330px|right|Hillary Rodham Clinton's Gallup Poll favorable and unfavorable ratings, 1997–2000 ]] In 1998, the Clintons' relationship became the subject of much speculation when investigations revealed that the President had had extramarital sexual activities with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Events surrounding the Lewinsky scandal eventually led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton. When the allegations against her husband were first made public, Hillary Clinton stated that they were the result of a "vast right-wing conspiracy", characterizing the Lewinsky charges as the latest in a long, organized, collaborative series of charges by Clinton political enemies rather than any wrongdoing by her husband. She later said that she had been misled by her husband's initial claims that no affair had taken place. After the evidence of President Clinton's encounters with Lewinsky became incontrovertible, she issued a public statement reaffirming her commitment to their marriage, but privately was reported to be furious at him and was unsure if she wanted to stay in the marriage.

There was a variety of public reactions to Hillary Clinton after this: some women admired her strength and poise in private matters made public, some sympathized with her as a victim of her husband's insensitive behavior, others criticized her as being an enabler to her husband's indiscretions, while still others accused her of cynically staying in a failed marriage as a way of keeping or even fostering her own political influence. Her public approval ratings in the wake of the revelations shot upward to around 70 percent, the highest they had ever been. In her 2003 memoir, she would attribute her decision to stay married to "a love that has persisted for decades" and add: "No one understands me better and no one can make me laugh the way Bill does. Even after all these years, he is still the most interesting, energizing and fully alive person I have ever met."

Traditional duties

Clinton initiated and was Founding Chair of the Save America's Treasures program, a national effort that matched federal funds to private donations to preserve and restore historic items and sites, including the flag that inspired "The Star-Spangled Banner" and the First Ladies Historic Site in Canton, Ohio. She was head of the White House Millennium Council, and hosted Millennium Evenings, a series of lectures that discussed futures studies, one of which became the first live simultaneous webcast from the White House. Clinton also created the first Sculpture Garden there, which displayed large contemporary American works of art loaned from museums in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden.

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 to be historically authentic to the period of James Monroe, the redecoration of the Treaty Room into the presidential study along 19th century lines, and the redecoration of the Map Room to how it looked during World War II. Clinton hosted many large-scale events at the White House, such as a Saint 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 21st century, and a state dinner honoring the bicentennial of the White House in November 2000.

Senate election of 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 B. Rangel of New York, urged Clinton to run for Moynihan's open seat in the United States Senate election of 2000. Once she decided to run, the Clintons purchased a home in Chappaqua, New York, north of New York City, in September 1999. She became the first First Lady of the United States to be a candidate for elected office. Initially, Clinton expected to face Rudy Giuliani, the Mayor of New York City, as her Republican opponent in the election. However, Giuliani withdrew from the race in May 2000 after being diagnosed with prostate cancer and having developments in his personal life become very public, and Clinton instead faced Rick Lazio, a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives representing New York's 2nd congressional district. Throughout the campaign, opponents accused Clinton of carpetbagging, as she had never resided in New York nor participated in the state's politics before this race. 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. 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 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.

The contest drew national attention. Lazio blundered during a September debate by seeming to invade Clinton's personal space trying to get her to sign a fundraising agreement. The campaigns of Clinton and Lazio, along with Giuliani's initial effort, spent a record combined $90 million. Clinton won the election on November 7, 2000, with 55 percent of the vote to Lazio's 43 percent. She was sworn in as United States Senator on January 3, 2001.

United States Senator

First term

Upon entering the Senate, Clinton maintained a low public profile and built relationships with senators from both parties. She forged alliances with religiously inclined senators by becoming a regular participant in the Senate Prayer Breakfast.

Clinton has served on five Senate committees: Committee on Budget (2001–2002), Committee on Armed Services (since 2003), Committee on Environment and Public Works (since 2001), Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (since 2001) and Special Committee on Aging. She is also a Commissioner of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (since 2001).

Following the September 11, 2001, attacks, Clinton sought to obtain funding for the recovery efforts in New York City and security improvements in her state. Working with New York's senior senator, Charles Schumer, she was instrumental in quickly securing $21 billion in funding for the World Trade Center site's redevelopment. She subsequently took a leading role in investigating the health issues faced by 9/11 first responders. Clinton voted for the USA Patriot Act in October 2001. In 2005, when the act was up for renewal, she worked to address some of the civil liberties concerns with it, before voting in favor of a compromise renewed act in March 2006 that gained large majority support.

Clinton strongly supported the 2001 U.S. 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. Clinton voted in favor of the October 2002 Iraq War 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 Iraq and Afghanistan to visit American troops stationed there. 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. Noting that war deployments were draining regular and reserve forces, she cointroduced legislation to increase the size of the regular United States Army by 80,000 soldiers to ease the strain. In late 2005, Clinton said that while immediate withdrawal from Iraq would be a mistake, Bush's pledge to stay "until the job is done" was also misguided, as it gave Iraqis "an open-ended invitation not to take care of themselves." Her stance caused frustration among those in the Democratic Party who favored immediate withdrawal. Clinton supported retaining and improving health benefits for veterans, and lobbied against the closure of several military bases. [[File:HillaryGallup2001-2009.gif|thumb|300px|right|Hillary Rodham Clinton's Gallup Poll favorable and unfavorable ratings, 2001–2009 ]] Senator Clinton voted against President Bush's two major tax cut packages, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. Clinton voted against the 2005 confirmation of John G. Roberts as Chief Justice of the United States and the 2006 confirmation of Samuel Alito to the United States Supreme Court.

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''. 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. In 2004 and 2006, Clinton voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment that sought to prohibit same-sex marriage.

Looking to establish a "progressive infrastructure" to rival that of American conservatism, Clinton played a formative role in conversations that led to the 2003 founding of former Clinton administration chief of staff John Podesta's Center for American Progress, shared aides with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, founded in 2003, and advised the Clintons' former antagonist David Brock's Media Matters for America, created in 2004. Following the 2004 Senate elections, she successfully pushed new Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid to create a Senate war room to handle daily political messaging.

Reelection campaign of 2006

In November 2004, Clinton announced that she would seek a second Senate term. The early frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, withdrew from the contest after several months of poor campaign performance. Clinton easily won the Democratic nomination over opposition from antiwar activist Jonathan Tasini. Clinton's eventual opponents in the general election were Republican candidate John Spencer, a former mayor of Yonkers, along with several third-party candidates. She won the election on November 7, 2006, with 67 percent of the vote to Spencer's 31 percent, carrying all but four of New York's sixty-two counties. Clinton spent $36 million for her reelection, more than any other candidate for Senate in the 2006 elections did. Some Democrats criticized her 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. In the following months, she transferred $10 million of her Senate funds toward her presidential campaign.

Second term

Clinton opposed the Iraq War troop surge of 2007. In March 2007, she voted in favor of a war-spending bill that required President Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq by a deadline; it passed almost completely along party lines but was subsequently vetoed by President Bush. In May 2007, a compromise war funding bill that removed withdrawal deadlines but tied funding to progress benchmarks for the Iraqi government passed the Senate by a vote of 80–14 and would be signed by Bush; Clinton was one of those who voted against it. Clinton responded to General David Petraeus's September 2007 Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq by saying, "I think that the reports that you provide to us really require a willing suspension of disbelief."

In March 2007, in response to the dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy, Clinton called on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign. In May and June 2007, regarding the high-profile, hotly debated comprehensive immigration reform bill known as the Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act of 2007, Clinton cast several votes in support of the bill, which eventually failed to gain cloture.

As the financial crisis of 2007–2008 reached a peak with the liquidity crisis of September 2008, Clinton supported the proposed bailout of United States financial system, voting in favor of the $700 billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, saying that it represented the interests of the American people. It passed the Senate 74–25.

Presidential campaign of 2008

Clinton had been preparing for a potential candidacy for United States President since at least early 2003. On January 20, 2007, Clinton announced via her web site the formation of a presidential exploratory committee for the United States presidential election of 2008; she stated, "I'm in, and I'm in to win." No woman had ever been nominated by a major party for President of the United States. In April 2007, the Clintons liquidated a blind trust, that had been established when Bill Clinton became president in 1993, to avoid the possibility of ethical conflicts or political embarrassments in the trust as Hillary Clinton undertook her presidential race. Later disclosure statements revealed that the couple's worth was now upwards of $50 million, and that they had earned over $100 million since 2000, with most of it coming from Bill Clinton's books, speaking engagements, and other activities.

Clinton led candidates competing for the Democratic nomination in opinion polls for the election throughout the first half of 2007. Most polls placed Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina as Clinton's closest competitors. Clinton and Obama both set records for early fundraising, swapping the money lead each quarter. By September 2007, polling in the first six states holding Democratic primaries or caucuses showed that Clinton was leading in all of them, with the races being closest in Iowa and South Carolina. By the following month, national polls showed Clinton far ahead of Democratic competitors. At the end of October, Clinton suffered a rare poor debate performance against Obama, Edwards, and her other opponents. Obama's message of "change" began to resonate with the Democratic electorate better than Clinton's message of "experience". The race tightened considerably, especially in the early caucus and primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, with Clinton losing her lead in some polls by December.

In the first vote of 2008, she placed third in the January 3 Iowa Democratic caucus to Obama and Edwards. Obama gained ground in national polling in the next few days, with all polls predicting a victory for him in the New Hampshire primary. However, Clinton gained a surprise win there on January 8, defeating Obama narrowly. Explanations for her New Hampshire comeback varied but often centered on her being seen more sympathetically, especially by women, after her eyes welled with tears and her voice broke while responding to a voter's question the day before the election.

The nature of the contest fractured in the next few days. Several remarks by Bill Clinton and other surrogates, and a remark by Hillary Clinton concerning Martin Luther King, Jr., and Lyndon B. Johnson, were perceived by many as, accidentally or intentionally, limiting Obama as a racially oriented candidate or otherwise denying the post-racial significance and accomplishments of his campaign. Despite attempts by both Hillary Clinton and Obama to downplay the issue, Democratic voting became more polarized as a result, with Clinton losing much of her support among African Americans. She lost by a two-to-one margin to Obama in the January 26 South Carolina primary, setting up, with Edwards soon dropping out, an intense two-person contest for the twenty-two February 5 Super Tuesday states. Bill Clinton had made more statements attracting criticism for their perceived racial implications late in the South Carolina campaign, and his role was seen as damaging enough to her that a wave of supporters within and outside of the campaign said the former President "needs to stop."

On Super Tuesday, Clinton won the largest states, such as California, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, while Obama won more states; they almost evenly split the total popular vote. But Obama was gaining more pledged delegates for his share of the popular vote due to better exploitation of the Democratic proportional allocation rules.

The Clinton campaign had counted on winning the nomination by Super Tuesday, and was unprepared financially and logistically for a prolonged effort; lagging in Internet fundraising, Clinton began loaning her campaign money. There was continuous turmoil within the campaign staff and she made several top-level personnel changes. Obama won the next eleven February caucuses and primaries across the country, often by large margins, and took a significant pledged delegate lead over Clinton. On March 4, Clinton broke the string of losses by winning in Ohio among other places, where her criticism of NAFTA, a major legacy of her husband's presidency, had been a key issue. Throughout the campaign, Obama dominated caucuses, which the Clinton campaign largely ignored organizing for. Obama did well in primaries where African Americans or younger, college-educated, or more affluent voters were heavily represented; Clinton did well in primaries where Hispanics or older, non-college-educated, or working-class white voters predominated. Some Democratic party leaders expressed concern that the drawn-out campaign between the two could damage the winner in the general election contest against Republican presumptive nominee John McCain, especially if an eventual triumph for Clinton was won via party-appointed superdelegates. On April 22, she won the Pennsylvania primary, and kept her campaign alive. However, on May 6, a narrower-than-expected win in the Indiana primary coupled with a large loss in the North Carolina primary ended any realistic chance she had of winning the nomination. She vowed to stay on through the remaining primaries, but stopped attacks against Obama; as one advisor stated, "She could accept losing. She could not accept quitting." She won some of the remaining contests, and indeed, over the last three months of the campaign she won more delegates, states, and votes than Obama, but it was not enough to overcome Obama's lead.

Following the final primaries on June 3, 2008, Obama had gained enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee. In a speech before her supporters on June 7, Clinton ended her campaign and endorsed Obama, declaring, "The way to continue our fight now to accomplish the goals for which we stand is to take our energy, our passion, our strength and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama." By campaign's end, Clinton had won 1,640 pledged delegates to Obama's 1,763; at the time of the clinching, Clinton had 286 superdelegates to Obama's 395, with those numbers widening to 256 versus 438 once Obama was acknowledged the winner. Clinton and Obama each received over 17 million votes during the nomination process, with both breaking the previous record. Clinton also eclipsed, by a very large margin, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm's 1972 mark for most primaries and delegates won by a woman. Clinton gave a passionate speech supporting Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention and campaigned frequently for him in Fall 2008, which concluded with his victory over McCain in the general election on November 4. Clinton's campaign ended up severely in debt; she owed millions of dollars to outside vendors and wrote off the $13 million that she lent it herself.

Secretary of State

Nomination and confirmation

In mid-November 2008, President-elect Obama and Clinton discussed the possibility of her serving as U.S. Secretary of State in his administration, and on November 21, reports indicated that she had accepted the position. On December 1, President-elect Obama formally announced that Clinton would be his nominee for Secretary of State. Clinton said she was reluctant to leave the Senate, but that the new position represented a "difficult and exciting adventure". As part of the nomination and in order to relieve concerns of conflict of interest, Bill Clinton agreed to accept several conditions and restrictions regarding his ongoing activities and fundraising efforts for the Clinton Presidential Center and Clinton Global Initiative.

The appointment required a Saxbe fix, passed and signed into law in December 2008. Confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee began on January 13, 2009, a week before the Obama inauguration; two days later, the Committee voted 16–1 to approve Clinton. By this time, Clinton's public approval rating had reached 65 percent, the highest point since the Lewinsky scandal. On January 21, 2009, Clinton was confirmed in the full Senate by a vote of 94–2. Clinton took the oath of office of Secretary of State and resigned from the Senate that same day. She became the first former First Lady to serve in the United States Cabinet.

Tenure

Clinton spent her initial days as Secretary of State telephoning dozens of world leaders and indicating that U.S. foreign policy would change direction: "We have a lot of damage to repair." She advocated an expanded role in global economic issues for the State Department and cited the need for an increased U.S. diplomatic presence, especially in Iraq where the Defense Department had conducted diplomatic missions. She pushed for a larger international affairs budget; the Obama administration's proposed 2010 budget contained a 7 percent increase for the State Department and other international programs. In March 2009, Clinton prevailed over Vice President Joe Biden on an internal debate to send an additional 20,000 troops to the war in Afghanistan. An elbow fracture and subsequent painful recuperation caused Clinton to miss two foreign trips in June 2009.

Clinton announced the most ambitious of her departmental reforms, the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, which establishes specific objectives for the State Department’s diplomatic missions abroad; it is modeled after a similar process in the Defense Department that she was familiar with from her time on the Senate Armed Services Committee. (The first such review was issued in late 2010 and called for the U.S. leading through "civilian power" as a cost-effective way of responding to international challenges and defusing crises. It also sought to institutionalize goals of empowering women throughout the world.) In September, Clinton unveiled the Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative at the annual meeting of her husband's Clinton Global Initiative. The new initiative seeks to battle hunger worldwide as a strategic part of U.S. foreign policy, rather than just react to food shortage emergencies as they occur, and emphasizes the role of women farmers. In October, on a trip to Switzerland, Clinton’s intervention overcame last-minute snags and saved the signing of an historic Turkish–Armenian accord that established diplomatic relations and opened the border between the two long-hostile nations. In Pakistan, she engaged in several unusually blunt discussions with students, talk show hosts, and tribal elders, in an attempt to repair the Pakistani image of the U.S.

In a major speech in January 2010, Clinton drew analogies between the Iron Curtain and the free and unfree Internet. Chinese officials reacted negatively towards it, and it garnered attention as the first time a senior American official had clearly defined the Internet as a key element of American foreign policy. By mid-2010, Clinton and Obama had forged a good working relationship; she was a team player within the administration and a defender of it to the outside, and was careful that neither she nor her husband would upstage him. She met with him weekly, but did not have the close, daily relationship that some of her predecessors had had with their presidents. In July 2010, Secretary Clinton visited Korea, Vietnam, Pakistan and Afghanistan, all the while preparing for the July 31 wedding of daughter Chelsea amid much media attention. In late November 2010, Clinton led the U.S. damage control effort after WikiLeaks released confidential State Department cables containing blunt statements and assessments by U.S. and foreign diplomats. A few of the cables released by WikiLeaks concerned Clinton directly: they revealed that directions to members of the foreign service, written by the CIA, had gone out in 2009 under her (systematically attached) name to gather biometric and other personal details on foreign diplomats, including officials of the United Nations and U.S. allies.

The 2011 Egyptian protests posed the biggest foreign policy crisis for the administration yet. Clinton was in the forefront of U.S. public response to it, quickly evolving from an early assessment that the government of Hosni Mubarak was "stable" to a stance that there needed to be an "orderly transition [to] a democratic participatory government" to a condemnation of violence against the protesters. Obama also came to rely upon Clinton's advice, organization, and personal connections in the behind-the-scenes response to developments. As protests spread throughout the region, Clinton was at the forefront of a U.S. response that she recognized was sometimes contradictory, backing some regimes while supporting protesters against others. As the 2011 Libyan uprising took place, Clinton's shift in favor of military intervention was a key turning point in overcoming internal administration opposition and gaining the backing for, and U.N. approval of, the 2011 military intervention in Libya. Following the successful May 2011 U.S. mission to kill Osama bin Laden, Clinton played a key role in the administration's decision not to release photographs of the dead al-Qaeda leader.

In the Mideast turmoil, Clinton saw an opportunity to advance one of the central themes of her tenure, the empowerment and welfare of women and girls worldwide. By now Clinton had set the record for most-traveled Secretary of State for a comparable period of time, logging and visiting 79 countries. Throughout her term, Clinton had indicated she had no interest in running for president again or in holding any other office. In March 2011, she expanded upon that by saying she was not interested in serving a second term as Secretary of State should Obama be re-elected in 2012.

Political positions

In a Gallup poll conducted during May 2005, 54 percent of respondents considered Clinton a liberal, 30 percent considered her a moderate, and 9 percent considered her a conservative.

Several organizations attempted to measure Clinton's place on the political spectrum scientifically using her Senate votes. ''National Journal'''s 2004 study of roll-call votes assigned Clinton a rating of 30 in the political spectrum, relative to the then-current Senate, with a rating of 1 being most liberal and 100 being most conservative. ''National Journal'''s subsequent rankings placed her as the 32nd-most liberal senator in 2006 and 16th-most liberal senator in 2007. A 2004 analysis by political scientists Joshua D. Clinton of Princeton University, Simon Jackman and Doug Rivers of Stanford University found her to be likely the sixth-to-eighth-most liberal Senator. ''The Almanac of American Politics'', edited by Michael Barone and Richard E. Cohen, rated her votes from 2003 through 2006 as liberal or conservative, with 100 as the highest rating, in three areas: Economic, Social, and Foreign; averaged for the four years, the ratings are: Economic = 75 liberal, 23 conservative; Social = 83 liberal, 6 conservative; Foreign = 66 liberal, 30 conservative. Average = 75 liberal, 20 conservative.

Interest groups also gave Clinton scores based on how well her Senate votes aligned with the positions of the group. Through 2008, she had an average lifetime 90 percent "Liberal Quotient" from Americans for Democratic Action and a lifetime 8 percent rating from the American Conservative Union.

Writings and recordings

As First Lady of the United States, Clinton published a weekly syndicated newspaper column titled "Talking It Over" from 1995 to 2000, distributed by Creators Syndicate. It focused on her experiences and those of women, children and families she met during her travels around the world.

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 made the New York Times Best Seller list and Clinton received the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 1997 for the book's audio recording.

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 an afterword 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 near-record advance of $8 million. The book set a first-week sales record for a nonfiction work, went on to sell more than one million copies in the first month following publication, and was translated into twelve foreign languages. Clinton's audio recording of the book earned her a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album.

Cultural and political image

Hillary Clinton has frequently been featured in the media and popular culture from a wide spectrum of perspectives. In 1995, ''New York Times'' writer Todd Purdum labeled Clinton "the First Lady as Rorschach test", an assessment echoed at the time by feminist writer and activist Betty Friedan, who said, "Coverage of Hillary Clinton is a massive Rorschach test of the evolution of women in our society." Clinton has often been described in the popular media as a polarizing figure, with some arguing otherwise. James Madison University political science professor Valerie Sulfaro's 2007 study used the American National Election Studies' "feeling thermometer" polls, which measure the degree of opinion about a political figure, to find that such polls during Clinton's First Lady years confirm the "conventional wisdom that Hillary Clinton is a polarizing figure", with the added insight that "affect towards Mrs. Clinton as first lady tended to be very positive or very negative, with a fairly constant one fourth of respondents feeling ambivalent or neutral." University of California, San Diego political science professor Gary Jacobson's 2006 study of partisan polarization found that in a state-by-state survey of job approval ratings of the state's senators, Clinton had the fourth-largest partisan difference of any senator, with a 50 percentage point difference in approval between New York's Democrats and Republicans.

Northern Illinois University political science professor Barbara Burrell's 2000 study found that Clinton's Gallup poll favorability numbers broke sharply along partisan lines throughout her time as First Lady, with 70 to 90 percent of Democrats typically viewing her favorably while 20 to 40 percent of Republicans did not. University of Wisconsin–Madison political science professor Charles Franklin analyzed her record of favorable versus unfavorable ratings in public opinion polls, and found that there was more variation in them during her First Lady years than her Senate years. The Senate years showed favorable ratings around 50 percent and unfavorable ratings in the mid-40 percent range; Franklin noted that, "This sharp split is, of course, one of the more widely remarked aspects of Sen. Clinton's public image." McGill University professor of history Gil Troy titled his 2006 biography of her ''Hillary Rodham Clinton: Polarizing First Lady'', and wrote that after the 1992 campaign, Clinton "was a polarizing figure, with 42 percent [of the public] saying she came closer to their values and lifestyle than previous first ladies and 41 percent disagreeing." Troy further wrote that Hillary Clinton "has been uniquely controversial and contradictory since she first appeared on the national radar screen in 1992" and that she "has alternately fascinated, bedeviled, bewitched, and appalled Americans."

Burrell's study found women consistently rating Clinton more favorably than men by about ten percentage points during her First Lady years. Jacobson's study found a positive correlation across all senators between being women and receiving a partisan-polarized response. Colorado State University communication studies professor Karrin Vasby Anderson describes the First Lady position as a "site" for American womanhood, one ready made for the symbolic negotiation of female identity. In particular, Anderson states there has been a cultural bias towards traditional first ladies and a cultural prohibition against modern first ladies; by the time of Clinton, the First Lady position had become a site of heterogeneity and paradox. Burrell, as well as biographers Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta, Jr., note that Clinton achieved her highest approval ratings as First Lady late in 1998, not for professional or political achievements of her own, but for being seen as the victim of her husband's very public infidelity. University of Pennsylvania communications professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson saw Hillary Clinton as an exemplar of the double bind, who though able to live in a "both-and" world of both career and family, nevertheless "became a surrogate on whom we projected our attitudes about attributes once thought incompatible", leading to her being placed in a variety of no-win situations. Quinnipiac University media studies professor Lisa Burns found press accounts frequently framing Clinton both as an exemplar of the modern professional working mother and as a political interloper interested in usurping power for herself. University of Indianapolis English professor Charlotte Templin found political cartoonists using a variety of stereotypes such as gender reversal, radical feminist as emasculator, and the wife the husband wants to get rid of to portray Hillary Clinton as violating gender norms.

Over fifty books and scholarly works have been written about Hillary Clinton, from many different perspectives. A 2006 survey by ''The New York Observer'' found "a virtual cottage industry" of "anti-Clinton literature", put out by Regnery Publishing and other conservative imprints, with titles such as ''Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House'', ''Hillary's Scheme: Inside the Next Clinton's Ruthless Agenda to Take the White House'', and ''Can She Be Stopped? : Hillary Clinton Will Be the Next President of the United States Unless ....'' Books praising Clinton did not sell nearly as well (other than the memoirs written by her and her husband). When she ran for Senate in 2000, a number of fundraising groups such as Save Our Senate and the Emergency Committee to Stop Hillary Rodham Clinton sprang up to oppose her. Van Natta, Jr., found that Republican and conservative groups viewed her as a reliable "bogeyman" to mention in fundraising letters, on a par with Ted Kennedy and the equivalent of Democratic and liberal appeals mentioning Newt Gingrich.

Going into the early stages of her presidential campaign for 2008, a ''Time'' magazine cover showed a large picture of her, with two checkboxes labeled "Love Her", "Hate Her", while ''Mother Jones'' titled its profile of her "Harpy, Hero, Heretic: Hillary". Democratic netroots activists consistently rated Clinton very low in polls of their desired candidates, while some conservative figures such as Bruce Bartlett and Christopher Ruddy were declaring a Hillary Clinton presidency not so bad after all and an October 2007 cover of ''The American Conservative'' magazine was titled "The Waning Power of Hillary Hate". By December 2007, communications professor Jamieson observed that there was a large amount of misogyny present about Clinton on the Internet, up to and including Facebook and other sites devoted to depictions reducing Clinton to sexual humiliation. She noted that, in response to widespread comments on Clinton's laugh, that "We know that there's language to condemn female speech that doesn't exist for male speech. We call women's speech shrill and strident. And Hillary Clinton's laugh was being described as a cackle." Use of the "bitch" epithet, which taken place against Clinton going back to her First Lady days and was seen by Karrin Vasby Anderson as a tool of containment against women in American politics, flourished during the campaign, especially on the Internet but via conventional media as well. Following Clinton's "choked up moment" and related incidents before the January 2008 New Hampshire primary, both ''The New York Times'' and ''Newsweek'' found that discussion of gender's role in the campaign had moved into the national political discourse. ''Newsweek'' editor Jon Meacham summed the relationship between Clinton and the American public by saying that the New Hampshire events, "brought an odd truth to light: though Hillary Rodham Clinton has been on the periphery or in the middle of national life for decades ... she is one of the most recognizable but least understood figures in American politics."

Once she became Secretary of State, Clinton's image seemed to dramatically improve among the American public and become one of a respected world figure. She gained consistently high approval ratings (by 2011, the highest of her career except for during the Lewinsky scandal), and her favorable-unfavorable ratings during 2010 were easily the highest of any active, nationally prominent American political figure. She continued to do well in Gallup's most admired man and woman poll; in 2010 she was named the most admired woman by Americans for the ninth straight time and the fifteenth overall.

Awards and honors

Clinton has received many awards and honors during her career from American and international organizations for her activities concerning health, women, and children.

Electoral history

Notes

References

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

Official Biography of First Lady Clinton

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{{U.S. Secretary box | before= Condoleezza Rice | years= 2009–present | president= Barack Obama | department= Secretary of State}}

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name	Jason Johnson
position	Pitcher
birth date	October 27, 1973|
birth place	Santa Barbara, California|
bats	Right
throws	Right
debutdate	August 27
debutyear	1997
debutteam	Pittsburgh Pirates
team	Camden Riversharks
stat1label	Win–Loss record
stat1value	56–100
stat2label	Earned run average
stat2value	4.99
stat3label	Strikeouts
stat3value	810
teams	Pittsburgh Pirates () Tampa Bay Devil Rays () Baltimore Orioles (–) Detroit Tigers (–) Cleveland Indians () Boston Red Sox () Cincinnati Reds () Seibu Lions () Los Angeles Dodgers ()
Highlights	2001 Tony Conigliaro Award }}

Jason Michael Johnson (born October 27, 1973 in Santa Barbara, California) is starting pitcher for the Camden Riversharks in the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball. He throws and bats right-handed.

Career

Johnson graduated from Conner High School in Hebron, Kentucky. He did not enter college, but was signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates as an undrafted free agent in . After debuting with the Pirates in , he has gone on to play for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Baltimore Orioles, Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Indians, Boston Red Sox, Cincinnati Reds, Seibu Lions, and Los Angeles Dodgers.

Johnson's five year tenure in Baltimore was moderately successful and he became known as an inning-eating starting pitcher as he matured. After enduring two losing seasons with Detroit, Johnson signed with Cleveland prior to the season. He fared no better there, going 3-8 with a 5.96 ERA. He was designated for assignment on June 22, 2006. Before he decided whether or not to accept the assignment, he was traded to the Boston Red Sox for cash. In Boston, his time as a member of the Red Sox was disastrous, going 0-4 with a 7.36 ERA. On August 18, 2006, Johnson was designated for assignment by the Red Sox and quickly signed to a minor league contract by the Cincinnati Reds.

He signed an incentive-laden, one-year, $3 million contract with the Seibu Lions for the season. He pitched one season in Japan, then on February 7, , signed a minor league contract with an invitation to spring training with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He failed to make the Dodgers opening day roster and was assigned to the Triple-A Las Vegas 51s. On July 18 the Dodgers added him to the 25-man roster, and he finished the season with them, going 1-2 with an ERA of 5.22. On January 6, , he signed a minor league contract with an invitation to spring training with the New York Yankees, where he was expected to compete for the final spot in the starting rotation. Johnson's return was thrown into doubt when he was diagnosed with choriodial melanoma in his right retina. On August 10, 2009 he was released by the Yankees.

Notes

Johnson is diabetic and was the first Major League Baseball player to get permission to wear an insulin pump on the field. He wears the pump on his belt on the left side of his lower back, in order to minimize the chance of it being hit by a bat or thrown ball.

In , he received the Tony Conigliaro Award.

On June 8, , Johnson became the first Tigers pitcher to hit a home run in a regular season game since Les Cain in . The homer came against Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Jeff Weaver, at Dodger Stadium.

References

External links

Category:Baseball players from California Category:Major League Baseball pitchers Category:Pittsburgh Pirates players Category:Tampa Bay Devil Rays players Category:Baltimore Orioles players Category:Detroit Tigers players Category:Cleveland Indians players Category:Boston Red Sox players Category:Cincinnati Reds players Category:Los Angeles Dodgers players Category:Seibu Lions players Category:American expatriate baseball players in Japan Category:Gulf Coast Pirates (baseball) players Category:Welland Pirates players Category:Augusta GreenJackets players Category:Lynchburg Hillcats players Category:Carolina Mudcats players Category:Durham Bulls players Category:Rochester Red Wings players Category:Bowie Baysox players Category:Wilmington Blue Rocks players Category:Pawtucket Red Sox players Category:Louisville Bats players Category:Las Vegas 51s players Category:Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees players Category:Trenton Thunder players Category:Camden Riversharks players Category:1973 births Category:Living people

fr:Jason Johnson ja:ジェーソン・ジョンソン