Sherrod Campbell Brown (born November 9, 1952) is the senior United States Senator from Ohio and a member of the Democratic Party. Before his election to the U.S. Senate, he was a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Ohio's 13th congressional district from 1993 to 2007. He previously served as the Ohio Secretary of State (1983–1991) and a member of the Ohio House of Representatives (1974–1982).

Brown defeated two-term Republican incumbent Mike DeWine in the 2006 U.S. Senate election. In the U.S. Senate, he is chairman of the Agriculture Subcommittee on Hunger, Nutrition and Family Farms and the Banking Subcommittee on Economic Policy, and is also a member of the Committee on Appropriations, Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and Select Committee on Ethics.

Brown was born in Mansfield, Ohio, the son of Emily (née Campbell) and Charles Gailey Brown, M.D. He was named after his maternal grandfather. He became an Eagle Scout in 1967. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Russian studies from Yale University in 1974. At Yale, he was in Davenport College, the same residential college as U.S. Presidents George H. W. and George W. Bush. He went on to receive a Master of Public Administration degree and a Master of Arts degree in education from the Ohio State University in Columbus in 1979 and 1981, respectively. He taught at the Mansfield branch campus of The Ohio State University from 1979 to 1981.

Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney (born January 30, 1941) served as the 46th Vice President of the United States (2001–2009), under George W. Bush.

Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Cheney was primarily raised in Sumner, Nebraska, and Casper, Wyoming. He began his political career as an intern for Congressman William A. Steiger, eventually working his way into the White House during the Nixon and Ford administrations, where he served the latter as White House Chief of Staff. In 1978, Cheney was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Wyoming; he was reelected five times, eventually becoming House Minority Whip. Cheney was selected to be the Secretary of Defense during the presidency of George H. W. Bush, holding the position for the majority of Bush's term. During this time, Cheney oversaw the 1991 Operation Desert Storm, among other actions.

Out of office during the Clinton presidency, Cheney was chairman and CEO of Halliburton Company from 1995 to 2000.

Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, the son of Marjorie Lorraine (née Dickey) and Richard Herbert Cheney. He is of predominantly English, as well as Welsh, Irish, and French Huguenot, ancestry; Cheney's 8th great-grandfather, William Cheney, immigrated from England to Massachusetts in the 17th century. Although not a direct descendant, he is collaterally related to Benjamin Pierce Cheney (1815–1895), the early American expressman. Cheney is a very distant cousin of both Harry S. Truman and Barack Obama; the three share a common ancestor in Mareen Duvall, a Huguenot who fled from France to England in the 17th century and later settled in Maryland. His father was a soil conservation agent for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and his mother was a softball star in the 1930s; Cheney was one of three children.

Joshua A. "Josh" Mandel (born September 27, 1977) is the current Ohio State Treasurer. Mandel previously served as a Republican member of the Ohio House of Representatives. He is the Republican challenger to incumbent Senator Sherrod Brown in 2012.

Mandel was born on September 27, 1977 in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Rita (née Friedman) and Bruce Mandel. He has a sister, Rachel. He attended Beachwood High School where he was the quarterback of the football team. Mandel attended The Ohio State University where he earned a BA in communications. At Ohio State, he served two terms as the undergraduate student government president. While there he was also a member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity. After graduating in 2000, he earned a JD from the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

Mandel enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves, where he served eight years, including times as an intelligence specialist, having graduated first in his class from Marine Corps Boot Camp and first in his class from Marine Corps Intelligence School. His Marine Corps duty included two tours in Iraq, where he operated throughout the Al Anbar Province. During both tours, Mandel was awarded the Navy & Marine Corps Achievement Medal for "superior performance of his duties." His first tour was from February 2004 to November 2004, during which he was attached to a light armored reconnaissance battalion. He left for his second tour in September 2007. Attached to an infantry battalion, Mandel served in the city of Haditha. Despite being an intelligence specialist, he would often go out on foot patrols with the infantry.

Connie Schultz (born July 21, 1957), of Avon, Ohio, has been a nationally syndicated columnist based at The Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper. She won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for commentary and had been finalist for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in feature writing.

Schultz was raised in Ashtabula, Ohio and received a journalism degree from Kent State University in 1979. For two years, she attended Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University where she met her first husband, law professor Stephen Gard.

Schultz is married to Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio. Because of his U.S. Senate campaign, Schultz took a leave of absence from The Plain Dealer to campaign for his election. She returned to The Plain Dealer in January 2007.[1] On September 19, 2011, Schultz again resigned from The Plain Dealer, having written in a note to colleagues that "in recent weeks, it has become painfully clear that my independence, professionally and personally, is possible only if I’m no longer writing for the newspaper that covers my husband’s senate race on a daily basis".[2]