Bob Rae

As a student at Gordon Junior High of Washington, D.C., the then-"Bobby" Rae competed in a middle-school version of It's Academic that was run in the summer of 1961. He later moved back to his native Canada and became the premier of Ontario from 1990 to 1995. In 2006, he was a candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Party but was eliminated in the penultimate convention ballot, leaving Canada just a few delegates short of filling both its Prime Minister and Official Leader of the Opposition posts with quizbowl alumni. The U.S. has a chance to take the lead in this arena if Hillary Clinton is elected President in 2008 and the Republicans' highest-ranking official is a quizbowl alum; however, neither current House Minority Leader John Boehner nor Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have any known quizbowl background.