Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton was the former Secretary of State under President Barack Obama. Her previous job was US Senator, representing the state of New York. She is the wife of former President William Jefferson Clinton.

She was a candidate for President in 2008, running for the Democratic Party nomination. She lost the nomination to then-Senator Barack Obama, who would win the general election.

2008 Presidential campaign
In 2007-08 Hillary ran for the Democratic nomination for President, and up until winter 2007 was the leading giant in every poll. However, Barack Obama had raised enough money to displace her inevitability. She had almost no organization in place, which was a huge strategic blunder, and Obama ended up winning the Democratic nomination in May 2008.

However, the long and drawn-out campaign trail revealed much of her character and really disillusioned many Democrats who were nostalgic for President Bill Clinton. He said such inflammatory things as "Jesse Jackson won here in '84 and '88, and he ran a good campaign..." when dismissing Obama's huge win in South Carolina, and his wife said many more of these quotes, too many to put down here.

Superdelegate controversy
Her main argument to the Democratic National Convention superdelegates was that she is "more electable" than Obama. However, Obama lead her in both the superdelegate count and the pledged delegate count, so her campaign was finished before May of 2008.

Secretary of State
After she campaigned and supported her former opponent's successful campaign during the general election, she was made the Secretary of State. This role is more high profile in the US government then just being a US Senator. Her term in this role started in January 2009 and lasted until January 2013.

Secretary Clinton spent her first days in office telephoning dozens of world leaders and indicating that U.S. foreign policy would change direction; saying "We have a lot of damage to repair."

In September, she 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 notably in the Third World. This is a strategic part of U.S. foreign policy rather than just reacting to food shortage emergencies as they occur, and emphasizes the role of women farmers.