Steve Schmidt (born 1970) is an American campaign strategist and public relations worker for the U.S. Republican Party. He specializes in political "message development and strategy." Schmidt was the senior campaign strategist and advisor to the 2008 presidential campaign of Senator John McCain.

Schmidt, who is of German descent, son of a school teacher and a businessman, grew up in North Plainfield, New Jersey, was an Eagle Scout, a tight end on the high school football team, a two-year member of the National Honor Society, and senior class vice president. In 1988, he was one of two graduating seniors voted "most likely to succeed" by his classmates at North Plainfield High School. He first handed out campaign materials for Democrat Bill Bradley's 1978 Senate campaign.

Schmidt attended the University of Delaware from 1988 through the spring of 1993, majoring in political science. He left three credits short of graduating because he did not pass a math course; Schmidt has said that he has been diagnosed with a learning disability that makes higher math difficult for him. He joined the Delta Tau Delta fraternity, was a member of the campus Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) program, and did field work for Republican candidates in Delaware, sometimes wearing campaign buttons to class.

David Plouffe ( /ˈplʌf/; born May 27,^{[citation needed]} 1967) is an American political strategist best known as the campaign manager for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign in the United States. A long-time Democratic Party campaign consultant, he was a partner at the party-aligned campaign consulting firm AKPD Message and Media, which he joined in 2000.

After the resignation of David Axelrod to set up for Obama's re-election campaign, Plouffe was appointed Senior Advisor to the President.

Plouffe was raised in Wilmington, Delaware and attended St. Mark's High School. He left the University of Delaware in 1989 to pursue a full time career in politics, and completed his full undergraduate degree in May 2010.

Plouffe began his political career when he went to work for Senator Tom Harkin's 1990 re-election campaign. He later worked as a state field director for Harkin's unsuccessful 1992 Presidential campaign. In the same year he successfully managed Congressman John Olver's first re-election bid in Massachusetts. In 1994 Plouffe managed Delaware Attorney General Charles M. Oberly's unsuccessful campaign against Senator William V. Roth. He then worked as campaign director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 1995. In 1996 Plouffe managed Bob Torricelli's successful campaign to fill Bill Bradley's New Jersey seat in the United States Senate.^{[citation needed]}

Sarah Louise Palin ⁱ/ˈpeɪlɨn/ (née Heath; born February 11, 1964) is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice presidency. Her book Going Rogue has sold more than two million copies. Since January 2010, she has provided political commentary for Fox News, and hosted a television show, Sarah Palin's Alaska. Five million viewers tuned in for the first episode, a record for The Learning Channel.

She was elected to Wasilla City Council in 1992 and became mayor of Wasilla in 1996. In 2003, after an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor, she was appointed Chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, responsible for overseeing the state's oil and gas fields for safety and efficiency. The youngest person and first woman to be elected Governor of Alaska, Palin held the office from December 2006 until her resignation in July 2009. She has since endorsed and campaigned for the Tea Party movement, as well as several candidates in the 2010 midterm elections. From the time of her Vice Presidential nomination in 2008, Palin was considered a potential candidate for the 2012 presidential election until she announced in October 2011 that she would not run.

James Richard "Rick" Perry (born March 4, 1950) is the 47th and current Governor of Texas. Perry, a Republican, was elected Lieutenant Governor of Texas in 1998 and assumed the governorship in December 2000 when then-governor George W. Bush resigned to become President of the United States. Perry was elected to full gubernatorial terms in 2002, 2006 and 2010. With a tenure in office to date of &1000000000000001100000011 years, &10000000000000188000000188 days, Perry is the longest continuously serving current U.S. governor, and the second longest serving current U.S. governor—after Terry Branstad of Iowa. Perry served as Chairman of the Republican Governors Association in 2008 (succeeding Sonny Perdue of Georgia) and again in 2011. Perry is the longest serving governor in Texas state history. As a result, he is the only governor in modern Texas history to have appointed at least one person to every eligible state office, board, or commission position (as well as to several elected offices to which the governor can appoint someone to fill an unexpired term, such as six of the nine current members of the Texas Supreme Court).

Herman Cain (born December 13, 1945) is an American author, business executive, radio host, syndicated columnist, and Tea Party activist from Georgia. He was a candidate for the 2012 U.S. Republican Party presidential nomination.

Cain grew up in Georgia and graduated from Morehouse College in 1967 with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics. Cain pursued graduate studies at Purdue University, and graduated with a Master of Science in computer science in 1971, while also working full-time for the U.S. Department of the Navy. In 1977, he joined Pillsbury Company where he later became vice president. During the 1980s, his success as a business executive at Burger King prompted Pillsbury Company to appoint him as chairman and CEO of Godfather's Pizza, in which capacity he served from 1986 to 1996.

Cain was chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Omaha Branch from 1989 to 1991. He was deputy chairman, from 1992 to 1994, and chairman, from 1995 to 1996, of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. In 1995, Cain was appointed by Newt Gingrich to the Kemp Commission, and was a senior economic advisor to the Bob Dole presidential campaign. Cain became the CEO of the National Restaurant Association, in which he served as president and CEO from 1996 to 1999. During the Presidency of Bill Clinton, Cain publicly opposed the Clinton health care plan of 1993, about which he questioned the president at a town hall meeting. Cain has served as a member of the board of directors of several companies, including Aquila, Inc., Nabisco, Whirlpool, Reader's Digest, and AGCO.