Random Democratic Candidates' First Jobs (25 items)

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  (#17) Steve Bullock

  • Politician

  As governor of Montana, one of the most wide-open nature-heavy states in the US, Steve Bullock probably won't surprise anyone when he talks about his first job - which of course was in the great outdoors. Specifically, he was a tour guide on a boat tour called Gates of the Mountains - and to this day, he reportedly can still rattle off his tour-guide spiel from memory.
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  (#10) Andrew Yang

  Enterpreneur Andrew Yang may have firmly established himself as the "business candidate," and his advocacy for Universal Basic Income has earned his candidacy a bit of attention. But despite his own financial success, no one can say he hasn't paid his dues as a blue-collar employee. In fact, he remembers his days on the low end of the restaurant totem pole well, and has mentioned them frequently in interviews and social media:

  I was a busboy at a local Chinese restaurant as a teenager - "The Imperial Wok." My English surprised the patrons. We got paid primarily in tips. Now I always tip well.
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  (#1) Elizabeth Warren

  • US Congressperson

  She may have spent the majority of her life mastering the law and navigating the intricacies of public policy - publishing a number of books on her areas of expertise in the process - but Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren got her start in the workforce in much more humble circumstances. At just 13 years old, with her family struggling to make ends meet, Warren took a job waiting tables at a Mexican restaurant - about two hours away from her hometown of Oklahoma City, no less. How did she land the job? Well, it was her aunt's restaurant. That was Warren's first official job, anyway, but she'd also been getting babysitting and sewing work for years beforehand.
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  (#9) Amy Klobuchar

  • US Congressperson

  Amy Klobuchar, the accomplished lawyer and long-time Senator from Minnesota, kept herself busy throughout her high school years, not just in the classroom but in the real world as well. Those who frequented the fast-food establishments in Wayzata in those days might remember seeing Klobuchar at her very first job at the local A&W, at which she served as a carhop - a job that came with another very A&W-specific part of the job description:

  My job for A&W involved cleaning the mugs by plunging them into a series of vats of hot water with varying concentrations of soap. Then I would put them in a freezer and, voilà, they were frosty, just as advertised. The only prblem was that we hardly ever changed the water and it didn't even stay hot for very long.
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  (#23) Marianne Williamson

  • Writer

  Self-help author Marianne Williamson is one of the more unknown of the Democratic candidates, at least from a national perspective. But those who have bought her books or sought her advice - including celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey - are more than familiar with her work. The same could be said for anyone hanging around the New York lounge scene in the 1970s, as Williamson briefly served as a cabaret singer after dropping out of college:

  'Work' is relative... I sang, the same way Bill Clinton played the saxophone.
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  (#6) Cory Booker

  • Politician

  After a prolific collegiate run that included a host of different degrees, a Rhodes Scholarship, and a couple of brutal years in the Pac-10 for Stanford's football team, Cory Booker didn't miss a beat when he took to the workforce en route to a successful political career. His earliest major professional endeavor was working as a housing organizer in inner-city Newark, starting a non-profit that advocated on behalf of the low-income residents of the area - where he himself also lived.

  “You can’t live in a community like this and not live with a sense of urgency,” Booker said.

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