Caroline Kennedy (CK)
Caroline Kennedy | |
|---|---|
 | |
| 45th President of the United States | |
| Assumed office January 20, 2017 | |
| Vice President | Cory Booker |
| Preceded by | Barack Obama |
| United States Senator from New York | |
| In office January 26, 2009 – November 11, 2016 | |
| Preceded by | Hillary Clinton |
| Succeeded by | Kirsten Gillibrand |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Caroline Bouvier Kennedy November 27, 1957 New York City, United States |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Children | |
| Parents | |
| Education | Harvard University (AB) Columbia University (JD) |
| Occupation |
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Caroline Bouvier Kennedy (born November 27, 1957) is an American politician, attorney, and author who is the 45th and current president of the United States. A member of the prominent Kennedy family and the Democratic Party, she previously served as a United States Senator representing the state of New York from 2009 to 2016. She is notably the only surviving child of former U.S president John F. Kennedy and former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.
Caroline was almost six when her father was assassinated on November 22, 1963. The following year, Jacqueline Kennedy and her children, Caroline and John Jr., moved to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where Caroline attended school. Kennedy graduated from Radcliffe College of Harvard University and worked at Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she met her future husband, exhibit designer Edwin Schlossberg. She later earned a JD degree from Columbia Law School. Most of Kennedy's professional life prior to the presidency has been in law, politics, education reform, and charitable work. She has also acted as a spokesperson for her family's legacy and co-authored two books with Ellen Alderman on civil liberties.
Early in the primary race for the 2008 presidential election, Kennedy and her uncle, Ted Kennedy, endorsed Democratic candidate Barack Obama. She later stumped for him in Florida, Indiana, and Ohio, served as co-chair of his Vice Presidential Search Committee, and addressed the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.
After Obama selected United States senator Hillary Clinton to serve as secretary of state, Kennedy expressed interest and later successfully achieved her desire in being appointed to Clinton's vacant Senate seat from New York, thereby making her the second female senator from New York. She went on to maintain the seat by winning the 2010 special election, followed by a subsequent victory in 2012, which saw her being reelected to a second term prior to her resignation in 2016. Following her resignation to become president, she was succeeded by Kirsten Gillibrand, who proceeded to win the following 2017 special election to maintain her current Senate seat.
Upon successfully defeating both her predecessor as New York senator, Hillary Clinton and Vermont senator, Bernie Sanders to become the Democratic nominee in the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries, Kennedy then went on to successfully defeat her Republican opponent, the American businessman and real estate mogul, Donald Trump, with running mate, Senator Cory Booker from New Jersey. In the election, Kennedy notably received the most votes ever cast for a candidate in a US presidential election with 77 million votes, surpassing the previous record held by Barack Obama of 69.5 million votes in the 2008 presidential election.
As a result of her victory in the election, Kennedy effectively became the second member of the Kennedy family to ever be elected to the presidency after her father, John F. Kennedy and the first woman in US history to be elected to the presidency. By default, at the age of fifty-nine, Kennedy is both the youngest and oldest woman to assume the presidency in US history. Moreover, she became the third US President in history to have been an offspring of a previous president after John Quincy Adams (son of John Adams) and George W. Bush (son of George H. W. Bush).
Much like her father, John F. Kennedy, and her prominent uncles, Ted Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, Kennedy is largely considered to be a figure of both modern American liberalism and progressivism. In her first couple of months as President, Kennedy has, among others, advocated for a public health insurance option, along with spearheading efforts in combating climate change.