Curtis Emerson LeMay (November 15, 1906 – October 1, 1990) was a general in the United States Air Force and the vice presidential running mate of American Independent Party presidential candidate George Wallace in 1968.

He is credited with designing and implementing an effective, but also controversial, systematic strategic bombing campaign in the Pacific theater of World War II. During the war, he was known for planning and executing a massive bombing campaign against cities in Japan and a crippling minelaying campaign of Japan's internal waterways. After the war, he headed the Berlin airlift, then reorganized the Strategic Air Command (SAC) into an effective instrument of nuclear war.

Curtis Emerson LeMay was born in Columbus, Ohio, on November 15, 1906. His father, Erving LeMay, was at times an ironworker and general handyman, but he never held a job longer than a few months. His mother, Arizona Carpenter LeMay, did her best to hold her family together. With very limited income, his family moved around the country as his father looked for work, going as far as Montana and California. Eventually they returned to his native city of Columbus. LeMay attended Columbus public schools, graduating from Columbus South High School, and studied civil engineering at Ohio State University. Working his way through college, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. While at Ohio State he was a member of the National Society of Pershing Rifles and the Professional Engineering Fraternity Theta Tau. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Air Corps Reserve in October 1929. He received a regular commission in the United States Army Air Corps in January 1930. While finishing at Ohio State, he took flight training at Norton Field in Columbus, in 1931–32. On June 9, 1934, he married Helen E. Maitland (died 1992), with whom he had one child, Patricia Jane LeMay Lodge, known as Janie.

Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona (1953–1965, 1969–1987) and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr. Conservative".

Goldwater is the politician most often credited for sparking the resurgence of the American conservative political movement in the 1960s. He also had a substantial impact on the libertarian movement.

Goldwater rejected the legacy of the New Deal and fought through the conservative coalition to defeat the New Deal coalition. He mobilized a large conservative constituency to win the hard-fought Republican primaries. Goldwater's right-wing campaign platform ultimately failed to gain the support of the electorate and he lost the 1964 presidential election to incumbent Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson by one of the largest landslides in history, bringing down many Republican candidates as well. The Johnson campaign and other critics painted him as a reactionary, while supporters praised his crusades against the Soviet Union, labor unions, and the welfare state. His defeat allowed Johnson and the Democrats in Congress to pass the Great Society programs, but the defeat of so many older Republicans in 1964 also cleared the way for a younger generation of American conservatives to mobilize. Goldwater was much less active as a national leader of conservatives after 1964; his supporters mostly rallied behind Ronald Reagan, who became governor of California in 1967 and the 40th President of the United States in 1981.

Warren Kozak (born 1951) is an American journalist and author. His writing appears frequently on the OpEd pages of the Wall Street Journal, the New York Sun and other newspapers and magazines. He was an on-air reporter at National Public Radio and wrote for television network anchors including Ted Koppel, Charles Gibson, Diane Sawyer and Aaron Brown.^{[citation needed]}

Warren Kozak was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he attended public schools, graduating from John Marshall High School. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1973 with a degree in Political Science and won a Benton Fellowship at the University of Chicago in 1993-94.

Kozak is the author of The Rabbi of 84th Street, a biography of Haskel Besser, which chronicles the Hasidic world of pre-World War II Poland, its destruction and its post-War rebirth. It was published by HarperCollins in 2004.

His second book, LeMay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay was released in 2009. In October 2010, he delivered the Exemplar keynote address at the United States Air Force Academy on the occasion of the selection of Curtis LeMay as the Exemplar of the Class of 2013. He has also lectured at West Point.

Michael Savage (born Michael Alan Weiner; March 31, 1942) is a conservative American radio host, author, and political commentator. He is the host of The Savage Nation, a nationally syndicated talk show that airs throughout the United States on Talk Radio Network. The Savage Nation has an audience of 8 to 10 million listeners on 400 stations across the United States, making it the fourth most listened-to radio talk show in the country. He holds master's degrees from the University of Hawaii in medical botany and medical anthropology and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in nutritional ethnomedicine. As Michael Weiner, he has written books on herbal medicine and homeopathy. As Michael Savage, he has written four New York Times-bestselling political books.

Savage has summarized his political philosophy in three words: borders, language, and culture. Some, including Savage himself, have characterized his views as conservative nationalism, while critics have characterized them as "fostering extremism or hatred." He outspokenly opposes illegal immigration to the United States, supports the English-only movement and argues that liberalism and progressivism are degrading American culture. Although his radio delivery is usually characterized as confrontational and politically themed, some of his show involves ruminating on topics such as medicine, nutrition, music, literature, history, theology, philosophy, sports, culture, and personal anecdotes.

Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Often referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records. His contribution to music, dance, and fashion, along with a much-publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades. The seventh child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene along with his brothers as a member of The Jackson 5 in 1964, and began his solo career in 1971.

In the early 1980s, Jackson became a dominant figure in popular music. The music videos for his songs, including those of "Beat It", "Billie Jean", and "Thriller", were credited with transforming the medium into an art form and a promotional tool, and the popularity of these videos helped to bring the relatively new television channel MTV to fame. Videos such as "Black or White" and "Scream" made him a staple on MTV in the 1990s. Through stage performances and music videos, Jackson popularized a number of complicated dance techniques, such as the robot and the moonwalk, to which he gave the name. His distinctive musical sound and vocal style influenced numerous hip hop, post-disco, contemporary R&B, pop and rock artists.