Nixon and Clinton: Comparing and Contrasting Their Lives and Presidential Achievements.

Nixon and Clinton: Comparing and Contrasting Their Lives and Presidential Achievements.

The purpose of this research paper is to compare and contrast two very fascinating U.S. presidents: Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Both presidents are different in many ways but very similar in others. Although they were not elected consecutively, Richard Nixon was the 37th President and Bill Clinton was the 42nd, this paper will conduct an integrated side-by-side discussion of many aspects of their lives. Various aspects of these two presidents’ lives both in the personal side and on their political careers will be explored to include life, family, education, political career and accomplishments while in office.

President Nixon, a Republican, was the only President to resign as President but was also as the only person to be elected twice to both the Presidency and the Vice Presidency of the United States. On the other hand, President Clinton was the first baby boomer president and became president at the end of the Cold War. He was also the third youngest president and the first member of the Democratic Party since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second full term as president. Both presidents have various things in common as well; for example, they were both lawyers and were both from humble backgrounds. Additionally, both presidents are mostly remembered because during their presidencies, they were in the forefront of major scandals that impacted their legacies. This paper will also explore those scandals.

Richard Milhous Nixon was born on January 9, 1913 in his family’s farm in Yorba Linda, California. He weighted “an impressive eleven pounds, with a strong voice and an almost full head of black hair and dark eyebrows”.[1] He was the second of five children born to Francis A. Nixon and Hannah Milhous Nixon and was named after Richard the Lion-Heart, who was a crusader and King of England from 1189 to 1199.

His mother and her family...