Jean Kennedy Smith

Jean Ann Kennedy Smith (born February 20, 1928) is an American diplomat and a former United States Ambassador to Ireland. She is the eighth of nine children born to Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald and is their last surviving child. Her siblings include President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, longtime Senator Ted Kennedy, and Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver.

Smith is the founder of Very Special Arts (VSA), an internationally recognized non-profit dedicated to creating a society where those with disabilities can engage with the arts. In 2011, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, by President Barack Obama for her work with VSA and the disabled.

As Ambassador to Ireland from 1993-1998, Smith was instrumental to the Northern Ireland peace process as President Bill Clinton's representative in Dublin. She successfully advocated for the U.S. government to grant a visa to Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams which directly led to the IRA declaring a ceasefire in 1994. Irish President Mary McAleese conferred honorary Irish citizenship on Smith in 1998 in recognition of her service to the country.

Ted Kennedy

Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. He was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and was the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history, having served there for almost 47 years. The most prominent living member of the Kennedy family for many years, he was the last surviving son of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and Rose Kennedy; the youngest brother of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, both victims of assassination; and the father of Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy.

Kennedy entered the Senate in a November 1962 special election to fill the seat once held by his brother John. He was elected to a full six-year term in 1964 and was reelected seven more times. The Chappaquiddick incident on July 18, 1969, resulted in the death of his automobile passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne. Kennedy pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident; the incident and its aftermath hindered his chances of ever becoming President of the United States. His one attempt, in the 1980 presidential election, resulted in a Democratic primary campaign loss to incumbent President Jimmy Carter.

Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II (US ⁱ/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician serving as the 44th President of the United States, the first African American to hold the office. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he served as president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney and taught constitutional law at University of Chicago Law School between 1992 and 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004, and ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary for the United States House of Representatives in 2000 against incumbent Bobby Rush.

In 2004, Obama received national attention during his campaign to represent Illinois in the United States Senate with his victory in the March Democratic Party primary, his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July, and his election to the Senate in November. He began his presidential campaign in 2007 and, after a close primary campaign against Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008, he won sufficient delegates in the Democratic Party primaries to receive the presidential nomination. He then defeated Republican nominee John McCain in the general election, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months after his inauguration, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III; August 19, 1946), generally known as Bill Clinton, is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as Governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992, and as the state's Attorney General from 1977 to 1979. A member of the Democratic Party, ideologically Clinton was a New Democrat, and many of his policies reflected a centrist Third Way philosophy of governance.

Clinton was born and raised in Arkansas, and is an alumnus of Georgetown University, where he was a member of Kappa Kappa Psi and Phi Beta Kappa and earned a Rhodes Scholarship to attend the University of Oxford. He is married to Hillary Clinton, who served as United States Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013 and who was a Senator from New York from 2001 to 2009. Both Clintons earned law degrees from Yale Law School, where they met and began dating. As Governor of Arkansas, Clinton overhauled the state's education system, and served as Chair of the National Governors Association.