QUESTIONS:
1. The White House has reportedly urged Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez to run for the Senate from Florida next year. Two former Cabinet members are now in the U.S. Senate. Can you name them?
2. In two states, both U.S. Senators never held elective office prior to entering the Senate. Can you name the states and their senators?
3. Five current U.S. Senators lost bids earlier in their careers for the U.S. House and never served in the House. Can you name them?
4. Who is the only present U.S. Senator who lost two races for the office before finally making it to the Senate through appointment?
5. What present U.S. Senator lost four races for different offices before finally making it to the Senate?
ANSWERS:
1. Republican Senators Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, past secretary of Transportation and then Labor, and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, past secretary of Education.
2. Utah, with Republican Senators Orrin Hatch and Robert F. Bennett, and North Carolina, with Democratic Sen. John Edwards and Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole.
3. Democrats Joe Lieberman (CT.), John Kerry (Mass.), and Republicans Peter Fitzgerald (Ill.), Christopher Bond (Mo.), and Kay Bailey Hutchison (Tex.). (Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma both lost House races but later made it to the House before moving on to the Senate).
4. Republican Ted Stevens of Alaska, who lost a Senate race in 1962 and a primary for the Senate in '68, before being appointed to a vacancy in December 1968.
5. Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who lost races for mayor of Philadelphia (1967), district attorney of Philadelphia (1973), and primaries for U.S. Senator (1976) and governor (1978) before winning his Senate seat in 1980.
