John Eric Ensign, DVM (born March 25, 1958) is a former United States Senator from Nevada, serving from January 2001 until he resigned in May 2011 amid an investigation of an ethics violation related to an extramarital affair. He is a member of the Republican Party and the former chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee.

Ensign is now working as a veterinarian at West Flamingo Animal Hospital in Las Vegas.

Ensign was born in Roseville, California, to Sharon Lee Cipriani and a father whose surname was Mueller; his maternal grandfather was of Italian descent. Ensign says that he is one eighth (1/8) Filipino American, his Philippine-born paternal grandfather having been half-Filipino and half-German. Ensign's family moved to Nevada when he was a child. His mother remarried Michael S. Ensign, a gaming industry executive who subsequently became chairman of the board of directors of Mandalay Bay, and who adopted John.

Ensign attended the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, becoming a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity, and later graduated from Oregon State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1981. He went on to receive his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from the Colorado State University in 1985 and entered veterinary practice soon after. He then became a successful businessman, opening a 24-hour animal hospital in Las Vegas. He owned two animal hospitals before entering politics.

Thomas Allen "Tom" Coburn, M.D. (born March 14, 1948), is a United States Senator, medical doctor, and Southern Baptist deacon. A member of the Republican Party, he is the junior senator from Oklahoma.

Coburn was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994 as part of the Republican Revolution. He upheld his campaign pledge to serve no more than three consecutive terms and did not run for re-election in 2000. In 2004, he returned to political office with a successful run for the U.S. Senate.

Coburn is a fiscal and social conservative, known for his opposition to deficit spending and pork barrel projects, and for his leadership in the pro-life movement. He supports term limits, gun rights, and the death penalty and opposes gay marriage. In the Senate, he is known as "Dr. No" for his tendency to place holds on and vote against bills he views as unconstitutional.

Coburn announced on February 12, 2010 that he was running for a second term in the Senate, but would not run for re-election to a third term in the Senate in 2016.

Rachel Anne Maddow (pronounced /ˈmædoʊ/; born April 1, 1973) is an American television host, political commentator, and author. Maddow hosts a nightly television show, The Rachel Maddow Show, on MSNBC. Her syndicated talk radio program of the same name aired on Air America Radio. Maddow is the first openly gay anchor of a prime-time news program in the United States.

Asked about her political views by the Valley Advocate, Maddow replied, "I'm undoubtedly a liberal, which means that I'm in almost total agreement with the Eisenhower-era Republican party platform."

Maddow was born in Castro Valley, California. Her father, Robert B. "Bob" Maddow, is a former United States Air Force captain who resigned his commission the year before her birth and found civilian work as a lawyer for the East Bay Municipal Utility District. Her mother, Elaine Maddow (née Gosse), is a school program administrator from Newfoundland, Canada. She has one older brother, David. Her father is of Russian and Dutch descent and her mother is of English and Irish ancestry. Maddow's mother was raised a strict Roman Catholic, and Maddow herself grew up in a community that her mother has described as "very conservative." Maddow was a competitive athlete and played three sports in high school. Referencing John Hughes films, she describes herself in high school as "a cross between the jock and the antisocial girl."

Richard John "Rick" Santorum (born May 10, 1958) is an American author, attorney, and Republican Party politician. He served as a United States Senator representing Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2007, and was a candidate for the 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination.

Born in Virginia, Santorum was raised primarily in Butler, Pennsylvania. He obtained an undergraduate degree from Pennsylvania State University, an M.B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh, and a J.D. from the Dickinson School of Law. Santorum worked as an attorney at K&L Gates where he met Karen Garver. They married in 1990, and have seven children; an eighth child died shortly after birth. Santorum was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives on behalf of Pennsylvania's 18th congressional district in 1990, becoming a member of a group dubbed the "Gang of Seven".

Santorum was elected as a United States Senator for Pennsylvania in 1994. He served two terms until losing his re-election bid in 2006. Santorum holds socially conservative positions, and is particularly known for his opposition to same-sex marriage and birth control. While serving as a senator, Santorum was the author of the National Weather Service Duties Act of 2005 and the Santorum Amendment. In 2005, Santorum introduced the Workplace Religious Freedom Act along with Senator John Kerry.

Keith Theodore Olbermann ( /ˈoʊlbərmən/; born January 27, 1959) is an American political commentator and writer. Most recently, he was the chief news officer of the Current TV network and the host of the Current TV weeknight political commentary program, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, until March 30, 2012, a program he hosted with the same title and a similar format on MSNBC from March 2003 to January 2011.

During his time at MSNBC, Olbermann established a niche in cable news commentary, gaining note for his pointed criticism of mainly right-leaning politicians and public figures such as Fox News Channel commentator Bill O'Reilly,President George W. Bush and 2008 Republican presidential nominee, John McCain. Though he has been described as a "liberal", he has resisted being labelled politically, stating "I'm not a liberal. I'm an American".

Olbermann spent the first twenty years of his career in sports journalism. He was a sports correspondent for CNN and for local TV and radio stations in the 1980s, winning the Best Sportscaster award from the California Associated Press three times. He co-hosted ESPN's SportsCenter from 1992 to 1997. From 1998 to 2001, he was a producer and anchor for Fox Sports Net and a host of Major League Baseball on Fox.