examples:
Nancy Witcher Astor
British politician (born in the United States) who was the first woman to sit in the British House of Commons (1879-1964)
Alben William Barkley
United States politician and lawyer; vice president of the United States (1877-1956)
William Maxwell Aitken
British newspaper publisher and politician (born in Canada); confidant of Winston Churchill (1879-1964)
Thomas Bradley
United States politician who was elected the first black mayor of Los Angeles (1917-1998)
Boy Orator of the Platte
United States lawyer and politician who advocated free silver and prosecuted John Scopes (1925) for teaching evolution in a Tennessee high school (1860-1925)
Aaron Burr
United States politician who served as vice president under Jefferson; he mortally wounded his political rival Alexander Hamilton in a duel and fled south (1756-1836)
Salmon Portland Chase
United States politician and jurist who served as chief justice of the United States Supreme Court (1808-1873)
the Great Compromiser
United States politician responsible for the Missouri Compromise between free and slave states (1777-1852)
DeWitt Clinton
United States politician who as governor of New York supported the project to build the Erie Canal (1769-1828)
David Crockett
United States frontiersman and Tennessee politician who died at the siege of the Alamo (1786-1836)
Stephen Arnold Douglas
United States politician who proposed that individual territories be allowed to decide whether they would have slavery; he engaged in a famous series of debates with Abraham Lincoln (1813-1861)
Samuel Houston
United States politician and military leader who fought to gain independence for Texas from Mexico and to make it a part of the United States (1793-1863)
Jesse Louis Jackson
United States civil rights leader who led a national campaign against racial discrimination and ran for presidential nomination (born in 1941)
Glenda Jackson
English film actress who later became a member of British Parliament (born in 1936)
Andre Maginot
French politician who proposed the Maginot Line (1877-1932)
Joseph Raymond McCarthy
United States politician who unscrupulously accused many citizens of being Communists (1908-1957)
Mullah Mohammed Omar
reclusive Afghanistani politician and leader of the Taliban who imposed a strict interpretation of shariah law on Afghanistan (born in 1960)
Jeannette Rankin
leader in the women's suffrage movement in Montana; the first woman to serve in the United States House of Representatives (1880-1973)
Nellie Tayloe Ross
a politician in Wyoming who was the first woman governor in the United States (1876-1977)
William Henry Seward
United States politician who as Secretary of State in 1867 arranged for the purchase of Alaska from Russia (known at the time as Seward's Folly) (1801-1872)
types:
Democrat
a member of the Democratic Party
Federalist
a member of a former political party in the United States that favored a strong centralized federal government
Labourite
a member of the British Labour Party
Mugwump
someone who bolted from the Republican Party during the U.S. presidential election of 1884
noncandidate
someone who has announced they are not a candidate; especially a politician who has announced that he or she is not a candidate for some political office
sachem
a political leader (especially of Tammany Hall)
Whig
a member of the Whig Party that existed in the United States before the American Civil War
dark horse
a political candidate who is not well known but could win unexpectedly
elder statesman
an elderly statesman whose advice is sought be government leaders
Fabian
a member of the Fabian Society in Britain
favorite son
a United States politician favored mainly in his or her home state
Founding Father
a member of the Constitutional Convention that drafted the United States Constitution in 1787
Menshevik
a Russian member of the liberal minority group that advocated gradual reform and opposed the Bolsheviks before and during the Russian Revolution
running mate
a nominee for the lesser of two closely related political offices
spoiler
a candidate with no chance of winning but who may draw enough votes to prevent one of the leading candidates from winning
stalking-horse
a candidate put forward to divide the Opposition or to mask the true candidate
write-in,
write-in candidate
a candidate for public office whose name does not appear on the ballot and so must be written on the ballot by the voters