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.
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.
I did guess a few purely by putting in US Politicians I had heard of.