William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III, August 19, 1946) served as the forty-second President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He was the fifteenth Democrat elected to that office. He was the third-youngest president, only older than Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy when he went into office. He became president at the end of the Cold War, and as he was born in the period after World War II, is known as the first Baby Boomer president. His wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is a United States Senator from New York, and former candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2008.
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Clinton was described as a New Democrat and was largely known for the Third Way philosophy of governance that came to epitomize his two terms as president. His policies, on issues such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and welfare reform, have been described as "centrist." Clinton presided over the longest period of peace-time economic expansion in American history, which included a balanced budget and a reported federal surplus. Based on Congressional accounting rules, at the end of his presidency Clinton reported a surplus of $559 billion. On the heels of a failed attempt at health care reform with a Democratic Congress, Republicans won control of the House of Representatives for the first time in forty years.Two years later, he was re-elected and became the first member of the Democratic Party since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second term as President. Later he was impeached for obstruction of justice, but subsequently was acquitted by the U.S. Senate.Clinton left office with an approval rating at 65%, the highest end of office rating of any President since World War II. Since then, Clinton has been involved in public speaking and humanitarian work. To promote and address international causes, such as treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS and global warming, he created the William J. Clinton Foundation.
In 2004, he released his autobiography, My Life, and more recently has been involved in his wife Hillary's 2008 presidential campaign and in that of President-elect Barack Obama. After graduating from Yale Law School, Clinton returned to Arkansas and became a professor at the University of Arkansas. A year later, he ran for the House of Representatives in 1974. The incumbent, John Paul Hammerschmidt, defeated Clinton by a 52% to 48% margin. Without opposition in the general election, Clinton was elected Arkansas Attorney General in 1976.
Clinton was elected Governor of Arkansas in 1978, making him the youngest governor in the country at age thirty-two. He worked on educational reform and Arkansas's roads, with wife Hillary leading a successful committee on urban health care reform. However, his term included an unpopular motor vehicle tax and citizens' anger over the escape of Cuban refugees (from the Mariel boatlift) detained in Fort Chaffee in 1980. Monroe Schwarzlose of Kingsland in Cleveland County, polled 31% of the vote against Clinton in the Democratic gubernatorial primary of 1980. Some suggested Schwarzlose's unexpected voter turnout foreshadowed Clinton's defeat in the general election that year by Republican challenger Frank D. White. As Clinton once joked, he was the youngest ex-governor in the nation's history.
Clinton joined friend's Bruce Lindsey's law firm of Wright, Lindsey and Jennings, though he spent most of the next two years working on his re-election campaign. Clinton was again elected governor and kept his job for ten years. He helped Arkansas transform its economy and significantly improve the state's educational system. He became a leading figure among the New Democrats. The New Democrats, organized within the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) were a branch of the Democratic Party that called for welfare reform and smaller government, a policy supported by both Democrats and Republicans. He served as Chair of the National Governors Association from 1986 to 1987, bringing him to an audience beyond Arkansas.
Clinton made economic growth, job creation and educational improvement high priorities. For senior citizens, he removed the sales tax from medicine and increased the home property tax exemption.
In the early 1980s, Clinton made reform of the Arkansas education system a top priority. The Arkansas Education Standards Committee, chaired by Clinton's wife, attorney and Legal Services Corporation chair Hillary Rodham, succeeded in reforming the education system, transforming it from the worst in the nation, into one of the best. This has been considered by many the greatest achievement of the Clinton governorship. Clinton and the committee were responsible for state educational improvement programs, notably more spending for schools, rising opportunities for gifted children, an increase in vocational education, raising of teachers' salaries, inclusion of a wider variety of courses, and mandatory teacher testing for aspiring educators.
Clinton's Governorship answered conservative criticism, but personal and business transactions made by the Clintons during this period became the basis of the Whitewater investigation, which dogged his later presidential administration.[16] After very extensive investigation over several years, no indictments were made against the Clintons related to the years in Arkansas. Governor and Mrs. Clinton attend the Dinner Honoring the Nation's Governors in the White House with President Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan, 1987. Though Governor Clinton had little to do with national politics at the time, Hillary Rodham had, several years previously, clashed over Legal Services Corporation funding with President Reagan as the organization's chair.
In 1987 there was media speculation Clinton would enter the race after then-New York Governor Mario Cuomo declined to run and Democratic front-runner Gary Hart withdrew owing to revelations of marital infidelity. Clinton decided to remain as Arkansas governor (following consideration for the potential candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton for governor, initially favored, but ultimately vetoed, by the First Lady). For the nomination, Clinton endorsed Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. However, he gave the opening night address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, which was nationally televised, but it was criticized for length. Presenting himself as a moderate and a member of the New Democrat wing of the Democratic Party, he headed the moderate Democratic Leadership Council in 1990 and 1991.
Due to his youthful appearance he was often called the "Boy Governor". In the first contest, the Iowa caucus, he finished a very distant third to Iowa Senator Tom Harkin. During the campaign for the New Hampshire Primary reports of an extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers surfaced. As Clinton fell far behind former Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas in the New Hampshire polls, following the Super Bowl, Clinton and his wife Hillary went on 60 Minutes to refute the charges. Their television appearance was a calculated risk but Clinton regained several delegates. He finished second to Tsongas in the New Hampshire primary, but after trailing badly in the polls and coming within single digits of winning, the media viewed it as a victory. On election night, Clinton labeled himself "The Comeback Kid". He ended leading New Hampshire by a large percentage. However, Tsongas picked up little or no momentum from his victory. Winning the big prizes of Florida and Texas and many of the Southern primaries gave Clinton a sizable delegate lead. However, former California Governor Jerry Brown was scoring victories and Clinton had yet to win a significant contest outside of his native South.
With no major Southern state remaining, Clinton targeted the New York primary, which contained a large number of delegates. He scored a resounding victory in New York City and won, shedding his image as a regional candidate. Having been transformed into the consensus candidate, he secured the Democratic Party nomination, finishing with a victory in Jerry Brown's home state of California.
Clinton won the 1992 presidential election (43.0% of the vote) against Republican incumbent George H. W. Bush (37.4% of the vote) and billionaire populist Ross Perot, who ran as an independent (18.9% of the vote) on a platform focusing on domestic issues; a significant part of Clinton's success was Bush's steep decline in public approval. Because Bush's approval ratings were in the 80% range during the Gulf War, he was described as "unbeatable." However, when Bush compromised with Democrats in an attempt to lower Federal deficits, he reneged on his promise not to raise taxes, hurting his approval rating. Clinton repeatedly condemned Bush for making a promise he failed to keep. By election time, the economy was souring and Bush saw his approval rating plummet to slightly over 40%. Finally, conservatives were previously united by anti-communism, but with the end of the Cold War, the party lacked a uniting issue. When Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson addressed Christian themes at the Republican National Convention, with Bush criticizing Democrats for omitting God from their platform, many moderates were alienated. Clinton then pointed to his moderate, "New Democrat" record as governor of Arkansas, though some on the more liberal side of the party remained suspicious. Many Democrats who supported Ronald Reagan and Bush in previous elections switched their allegiance to Clinton.
His election ended twelve years of Republican rule of the White House, and twenty of the previous twenty four years. The election gave Democrats full control of the United States Congress. Clinton was the first president to enjoy this windfall since Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s.
However, during the campaign questions of conflict of interest regarding state business and the politically powerful Rose Law Firm, at which Hillary Rodham Clinton was a partner, arose. Clinton maintained questions were moot because all transactions with the state were deducted prior to determining Hillary's firm pay. Further concern arose when Bill Clinton announced that, with Hillary, voters would be getting two presidents "for the price of one".
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