He actually was a rising star and a promising legislator before the whole ding dong issue. A lot of people thought he would be Mayor of New York City. That makes the whole fiasco even worse.
Yes he was well-known and doing a lot of good work before the sexting thing but I think joey is right that you can't argue any of that really made him "famous."
McConnell took me the longest to remember. A couple guys on our local radio station make fun that he always sounds like he's got a big ol' June bug stuck in his throat when he talks, so I had to get him by his very local nickname...Junebug McConnell. Haha.
It’s probably the fact that we have that “Vote Straight Republican Party” option as the first checkbox. Many people here vote Republican without even thinking, so he probably only gets by due to that lazy voting method.
Interesting characteristics of the choices: 11 Republicans, 4 Democrats, and 1 other. Whenever anything is skewed in one way or another, it's difficult not to wonder what's functioning to skew the selection.