There were so many ostensible deal breakers in Arnold Schwarzenegger's 1977 interview with the adult magazine Oui that his victory in California's 2003 gubernatorial election might have been taken as a sign of how much voters disliked incumbent Gray Davis. Over the course of a single sit-down, Schwarzenegger, then 29 and a champion bodybuilder, recalled participating in an orgy, used a gay slur and admitted to smoking pot. Confronted about the interview during the 2003 campaign, he held his ground. "I never lived my life to be a politician," he said. "Obviously, I've made statements that were ludicrous and crazy and outrageous and all those things, because that's the way I always was." Who can argue with that?
Top 10 Embarrassing Things that Didn't Stop People from Getting Elected
Scott Brown won the Senate race in Massachusetts in spite of a nude pictorial in a 1982 Cosmopolitan magazine spread that made his detractors titter. Here's a look at other politicians who emerged victorious despite past indiscretions