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Entertainment

30 Amazing Photos of Politicians Before They Were Famous

By Megan Cahn

Whether you consider yourself a political person or not, the men and women who run our country become fixtures in most of our lives. You may remember exactly where you were the tragic day when John F. Kennedy was shot or when it was announced that Barack Obama or Donald Trump won the election. Democracy, and who we choose to represent us, is a lot of what it means to be American. 

Especially as the 2020 election gets closer and candidates are ramping up their campaigns with rallies and debate appearances (or tweets), this is even more apparent than ever. But we’re not here to talk about policy, we have a lighter agenda. In the spirit of the political season, but mostly for our love of some good ol’ nostalgia, we dug through the archives for photos of the most famous politicians when dreams of the White House or the senate floor were just a glimmer in their eyes. 

From George H.W. Bush when he played baseball at Yale to Hillary Clinton as an eager Wellesley student, these pics will make you look twice and give you a welcomed reprieve from the usual political headlines. 

Keep scrolling to see the governors, senators, and presidents you’ve gotten to know over the years before they were famous. 

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  1. Ronald Reagan 1

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    Ronald Reagan  Though obviously best known for being the 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan had a flourishing acting career before he entered politics — appearing in over 60 Hollywood films! Here he is 1940, at 29 years old, looking ever so like the handsome leading man. 

  3. Ronald Reagan 2

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    Ronald Reagan  And just because he was so easy on the eyes, here’s one of the president that same year in full color. 

  5. Al Gore

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    Al Gore  Looks like the former vice president was always an outdoorsman! The now eco-warrior and then senator was all smiles on his farm in 1988.

  6. Al Gore 2

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    Al Gore And here he is that same year taking an oceanside jog in the sweetest t-shirt ever. 

  7. Nancy Pelosi

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    Nancy Pelosi  The Speaker of the House has been in politics for quite a long time, and at 79 years old shows no signs of slowing down! Here she is talking to a class at San Francisco State University when she was first running for congress in 1987.

  9. Rudy Guiliani

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    Rudy Giuliani  Before he was the mayor of New York City and a presidential candidate, Rudolph Giuliani was an attorney — here he is as a young lawyer in 1983 — and these days he’s gone back to his roots as the personal counsel for none other than Donald Trump. 

  10. Kamala Harris

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    Kamala Harris  Though she proved she has quite the sense of humor in the second democratic debate (The Wizard of Oz, anyone?), Kamala Harris looks every bit the tough prosecutor she is in this portrait in 1997. 

  11. John Mccain

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    John McCain  At 28-years-old the late great John McCain was a lieutenant in the navy with so much on the horizon — and he was pretty handsome to boot. Who doesn’t love a man in uniform? 

  13. George W Bush

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    George W. Bush Speaking of handsome men in uniforms, at 24 years old in 1970, George W. Bush was a 2nd lieutenant in the Texas Air National Guard with a glimmer in his eye. Who knew that in 31 years he would become the 43rd President of the United States?

  14. George Hw Bush

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    George H.W. Bush Not only was George H.W. Bush a gifted Ivy League student, he also played baseball for Yale. Here is in his early 20s looking dapper in his uniform at least 40 years before he became the 41st President of the United States. 

  15. Mitch Mcconell

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    Mitch McConnell The Senate Majority Leader may be all serious business these days, but back in 1988 when he was just a senator from Kentucky, he looks like he wouldn’t hurt a fly. 

  17. John Kerry 1

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    John Kerry The former senator and Secretary of State was an activist before he ever became a politician. As the 28-year-old director of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and a former Navy lieutenant, he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee making a plea to end the war in Vietnam. 

  18. Joe Biden

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    Joe Biden Even 45 years ago the then-senator, future Vice President, and current presidential candidate’s signature beaming smile is completely recognizable. 

  19. Jimmy Carter

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    Jimmy Carter  At 94-years-old Jimmy Carter is the oldest living president, but here is as a baby-faced naval academy student when he was just 23 in 1947! 

  21. Keneddy Brothers

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    The Kennedy Brothers The Kennedys are as close as America gets to having a royal family. Though plagued with tragedy, they have made their mark on American politics. Here are brothers, future President John Fitzgerald, future senators Robert, and Ted, in their teens at their family compound in Cape Cod in 1930. 

  22. Jfk 2

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    John F. Kennedy  JFK’s smile could light up any room! Here he is as a fresh-faced and dapper-looking 21-year-old Harvard student beaming from ear-to-ear in 1938. 

  23. Jfk 1

    John F. Kennedy  A young John has a seriousness about him in his Navy portrait, 21 years before he would become the 35th President of the United States and 23 years before he would be assassinated. 

  25. Bill Clinton

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    Bill Clinton Even in 1968, when Bill Clinton was just a 22-year-old student at Oxford, he had a confident look in his eye as if he could be the leader of the free world right then and there. In fact, ten years later he became the youngest person to ever hold the position of governor when he was elected in Arkansas. 

  26. Hilary Clinton

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    Hillary Clinton  We did a double-take when we saw the gorgeous 1969 picture of a 22-year-old Hillary Clinton back in her Wellesley college days and three years before she met Bill in the Yale Law School library. She’s quite smoldering!

  27. Hillary Bill Clinton

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    Bill and Hillary Clinton   Bill and Hillary were married in 1975 after Bill proposed numerous times with Hillary turning him down. "I was desperately in love with him but utterly confused about my life and future," she has said. She finally said yes when Bill bought her a little house she had her eye on in Arkansas. This photo was taken four years after they tied the knot in front of just 15 of their closest friends — looks like they are still in the honeymoon phase! 

  29. Elizabeth Warren

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    Elizabeth Warren  Ever wonder what makes presidential candidate and senator Elizabeth Warren such an adept debater? We think it’s safe to say her time spent as a law professor has something to do with it. Here she is at Penn Law School in the early 90s — she also taught at Harvard Law School.

  30. Ruth Bader Ginsberg

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    Ruth Bader Ginsburg She may not technically be a politician, but the iconic 86-year-old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been such an important figure for women’s rights we had to include her. Here she is in 1977 at the age of 44 when she was the director of the ACLU's Women's Rights Project, where she argued six gender discrimination cases before the Supreme Court, before joining the bench herself. 

  31. Donald Trump

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    Donald Trump  Here is the Donald in New York City when he was just a 30-year-old millionaire real estate developer. Do you think he had any idea he would become a reality TV star (or that reality TV would even be a thing), let alone the 44th President of the United States? 

  33. Donald Melania Trump

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    Donald and Melania Trump  Here is the First Lady of the United States in 1999 when she was just 29 years old and still Melania Knauss, the Slovenian fashion model. She became Trump’s third wife six years later in a lavish wedding at no other than Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida — which ironically Hillary and Bill Clinton attended.

  34. Condaleeza Rice

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    Condoleezza Rice A 31-year-old Condoleezza Rice is all smiles as she poses for her professor portrait at Stanford University in 1985. She taught political science there 20 years before she became the 66th United States Secretary of State under George W. Bush and the first African American woman to hold this position. 

  35. Bernie Sanders

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    Bernie Sanders  Love him or hate him, there is no denying that the senator and presidential candidate has always been true himself — and his look! 

  37. Barack Obama 2

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    Barack Obama  Always the over-achiever, a 29-year-old Barack Obama was all smiles after being elected the President of the Harvard Law Review in 1990, just 19 years before he became the 43rd and first African American President of the United States. 

  38. Barack Obama 1

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    Barack Obama  One more from his Harvard Law School days, as the author of three best-selling books and one who drops his summer reading list every year, any picture of Barack Obama surrounded by books seems fitting no matter when its from. 

  39. Barack Michelle

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    Barack and Michelle Obama  Barack and Michelle travelled to Kenya — the country where Barack’s father is from — in 1992, the year they were married when he was 31 and she was 28.

  40. Barack Obama 3

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    Barack and Michelle Obama  Barack and Michelle have a cuddle with three-year-old Sasha and six-year-old Malia just hours before he would be confirmed for the U.S. Senate back in 2004. 
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