Bill Clinton's Road to Becoming a President

The Presidency of Bill Clinton is widely known in our modern society, whether people feel it was a successful one or not. The beginning of Bill Clinton’s life and his earliest years were greatly influential on his love of politics, and his later decision to run for President. He was always very successful when it came to his school and education, leading him to attend Georgetown University as well as Yale School of Law. He became the 42nd President of the United States. He focused on bettering the economy as well as lowering the unemployment rate significantly. During his presidency, he had more scandals and controversies than any other president but was still loved by all America.

To this day, he continues to involve himself in politics and plans to until he no longer loves doing what he does. William Clinton was born in Hope, Arkansas on August 19th, 1946. He was raised by his mother and grandmother, the two had very different parenting styles. At a young age, his mother would tell him that he would be the President someday when he was an adult. His father died in a car accident several months before he was born. Bill’s mother remarried an alcoholic named Roger Clinton, who she would divorce but then remarry once again when Bill was fifteen, but he constantly had to be the peacemaker between the two of them. He began to show his interest in politics when he was in high school and excelled in all his classes. He was sent by his principle, Johnnie Mae Mackey, to Washington D.C., for an imitation political convention called “Boy’s Nation.”

Here he was photographed shaking hands with President John F. Kennedy, which would later symbolize the relationship between the two families. Clinton would go on to attend Georgetown University where he would become an International Affairs major. He quickly would reach the top of the student body government, and would later be elected president of his class for both his freshman and sophomore year. He ran in his Junior year, but after looking “too political” to the rest of his classmates, he would lose the election. Before graduating from Georgetown, Bill would move to England where he would study at the University of Oxford after winning a scholarship to study abroad for two years.

While in England, he would be called for the draft of the Vietnam War, but would later write a letter getting out of the draft that would come up during his campaign and cause him some damage. He would then enter Yale Law School where he would meet his future wife, Hillary Rodham, and then later married her in 1975. He would work on the U.S. campaign of Joe Duffy in 1970. He would move back to Arkansas after graduation and began teaching law at the University of Arkansas while throwing himself into politics. He ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives but would lose to incumbent member John Paul Hammerschmidt. He ran for Governor in 1978, becoming one of the nations youngest governor’s.

This would be his motivation for bigger and better titles, such as President of the United States. Many people saw Clinton as a potential candidate during the 1988 Presidential campaign of George H. W. Bush, but he would not think to start his campaign until 1991. He would announce his campaign on October 3rd, 1991, and would win the majority of delegates in the Democratic Primaries. Bill Clinton’s campaign was run strictly off of a disciplined plan. He was running against Republican George H. W. Bush and independent Ross Perot. After Perot’s campaign weakened and the collapsed, all of its backers turned to Clinton as their last resort. He often used his family, wife Hillary and daughter Chelsea, as a way to change the mind of potential voters by presenting favorable information. He would then announce Tennessee Senator Al Gore as his running mate. During his campaign, quite a couple of scandals would set him back a substantial amount. One of these scandals would include the draft avoidance letter he wrote while studying in England. Many people felt that because he avoided the draft and sacrificed other peoples lives for his own, that he was an unfit leader for this country. This letter would cause him to lose twenty-two points in less than a week. Another one of these scandals would be the story of Clinton using marijuana while in college, which would bring about his famous response of “I only tried it once but never actually inhaled”.

Despite these scandals, Bill Clinton would be elected the 42nd President of the United States on November 3rd, 1992. One of his first acts as the President was the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993. This would raise taxes and set up future budget surpluses.Because of this, Clinton’s second term would see the first federal budget surplus since the 1960s. During his first term, Bill Clinton would appoint two Supreme Court Justices: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Stephen Breyer. During Clinton’s Presidency, America would experience great accomplishments such as the longest economic expansion in American history, the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years, the lowest crime rate in 26 years, paid off $360 billion of the national debt, and so much more. Health care coverage for most children in hospitals was a hard thing to get for the average middle-class people, but Clinton would sign a bill creating the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which would give these families and children the opportunity to have affordable health care.

Clinton supported the rights of homosexual individuals to serve in the U.S. Military along with Secretary of Defense Les Aspin, and together they would develop a plan that allowed such individuals to do so. Clinton would also sign the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act in November 1993. This act would require a background check for any and all gun purchases. During Clinton’s term, America would experience a huge decline in home-ownership rates for low-income families, so Clinton sought to reform the Community Reinvestment Act, which would encourage banks to give loans families that inhabited low-income areas. Because Clinton would begin his term two years after the end of the Cold War, he entered into some increasingly prominent issues in international policies. Clinton would push several major trade agreements with other countries because he believed that globalization would promote economic prosperity throughout the world.

During his first term, Bill Clinton would enter into one of the most well known presidential affairs with White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. Lewinsky was in her early 20’s when the two would begin their sexual scandal that would last from 1995 until 1997. After visits to the oval office by Lewinsky began to be noticed by many White House staff, Monica was moved to work a job at the Pentagon. At her new job, Lewinsky would befriend a coworker named Linda Tripp, and would often talk about her affair with the president. Tripp would then pass on this information to Lucianne Goldberg who worked as an anti-Clinton conservative, which would then pass on to the hands of Paula Jones. Jones was a former government employee who filed a lawsuit against the president when he was still Governor of Arkansas back in 1991. This would be the start of the infamous court case on the Clinton-Lewinsky sexual affair scandal, that would later find Clinton innocent because of his confession to the “inappropriate intimate physical contact” with Lewinsky, would not meet the definition of sexual relations used by Jones’ attorneys.

Because of the sexual harassment lawsuit filed against him, charges such as obstruction of justice and perjury would result in the impeachment of Bill Clinton on February 12th, 1999. After Independent Counsel Ken Starr turned over documentation to the House Judiciary Committee, Cheif Prosecutor Davis Schippers and his team would review the materials and determine that it was sufficient enough evidence to impeach the president. Bill Clinton would address his last farewells to the nation on January 18th, 2001. Clinton would finish his time in office on January 20th, 2001. George W. Bush was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States. After his second term as President came to a closing, Clinton and his family moved to Chappaqua, New York, the hometown of his wife Hillary.

Here, Bill Clinton would keep an office and maintain an active speaking schedule while getting paid more than $100,000 per speech. Because Clinton was one of the youngest presidents to leave the office, he would still be involved in political issues. Bill would continue to work through the Clinton Presidential Foundation. Most of his work would be affiliated with helping his wife Hillary in her 2000 campaign for Senator of New York. Clinton joined former President Jimmy Carter along with other Baptist leader in organizing the New Baptist Covenant which addresses the environment, poverty, and global conflicts. In 2004 he released an autobiography titled My Life which was nominated for a Grammy Award for the category of Best Spoken Word Album in 2008. Bill Clinton would go on to support his wife Hillary in her first run for President in 2008. Hillary would soon find defeat in the primaries against former President Barack Obama. But, after becoming great friends with the Obamas, the Clinton’s would be a major supporter in Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2012.

Hillary would also run again for President in the 2016 campaign but again would lose to current President Donald Trump. In conclusion, Bill Clinton was one of the youngest presidents to end his term, but accomplished quite a lot during his years in office. I believe that because he was so involved in politics and education from the beginning of his life in school, it jump-started his love for government at such a young age. Bill Clinton started great things very quickly into his first term, and even though he was impeached because of more than one charge against him, he continued to indulge himself in politics. During both Presidential campaigns of his wife Hillary, he was a major factor to many people who wanted her in office and often spoke at any rallies during her campaign. Even though Hillary lost both of her runs, the Clinton’s are still very influential figures in politics and will continue to be for a very long time.