William Jefferson Clinton is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again from 1983 to 1992. Clinton, whose policies reflected a centrist "Third Way" political philosophy, became known as a New Democrat.
Clinton was born and raised in Arkansas. He graduated from Georgetown University in 1968, and later from Yale Law School, where he met his future wife, Hillary Rodham. After graduating from law school, Clinton returned to Arkansas and won election as state attorney general, followed by two non-consecutive tenures as Arkansas governor. As governor, he overhauled the state's education system and served as chairman of the National Governors Association. Clinton was elected president in the 1992 election, defeating the incumbent Republican Party president George H. W. Bush and the independent businessman Ross Perot. He became the first president to be born in the Baby Boomer generation.
Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history.