Knock, knock . . .
Hey, it’s the Human Rights Campaign, which wants to see a second Obama administration make gay rights an even bigger priority than it did in the last four years.
Paula Broadwell is a West Point graduate and married, mother of two small children, and the woman behind the extramarital affair that led to retired General David Petraeus's resignation from the CIA.
More from PostPolitics
IRS’s Lois Lerner to plead the Fifth
The IRS official who first disclosed the agency's improper targeting of conservative groups will invoke her right not to incriminate herself.
Did Republicans leak ‘doctored e-mails ... to smear the president’?
FACT CHECKER | When a White House aide uses the same word — “doctored,” you know it is a carefully crafted talking point.
Coburn: Tornado aid must be offset
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) will insist that any federal aid to deal with the tornado in his home state must be offset by budget cuts.
Obama the uniter? Not really.
THE FIX | The president who pledged to change Washington is almost certain to come up short.
HRC President Chad Griffin told our colleague Ned Martel the day after the election that his organization would love to see an openly gay Cabinet secretary and an openly gay ambassador to a Group of 20 nation. Both would be firsts (David Huebner, who’s gay, is ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa, but the HRC wants one of the big-deal countries). Griffin says there are plenty of qualified candidates out there — enough to fill a binder or two. “Our government, particularly in this administration, looks like America,” he says. “And it’s important to have a Cabinet that looks like America.”
In not-unrelated news, gay money was a key to Obama’s fundraising success. A dozen members of his national finance team are gay, and we’re hearing that they collectively outraised the other “affinity groups” — categories such as “Latinos” or “trial lawyers” — represented on the team.
Money aside, gays even can make the argument that they handed Obama the election: According to exit polling, 5 percent of voters identified themselves as gay and 76 percent of those voters supported the Democratic ticket. Of voters who didn’t identify as gay, only 49 percent voted for Obama.
There’s a grand tradition of presidents rewarding their biggest donors with choice ambassadorships. And Obama would have plenty of gay donors (like power couple Michael Smith, the famed decorator, and HBO exec James Costos, who were among his biggest bundlers) to choose from to staff some of the choicer embassies around the globe.
As for that Cabinet post, there may be a few openings. We know that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta are definitely planning to head for the hills at some point. Others are mulling over the decision — and then there’s the post of commerce secretary, which is vacant.
There are certainly some gay candidates who could fit the bill. Among those often talked about to fill various Cabinet posts are John Berry, director of the Office of Personnel Management, and Fred Hochberg, president of the Import-Export Bank, who’s most often mentioned for that Commerce Department job.
Of course, the donations-for-nominations game is never couched as a quid pro quo. But when the door knocks . . .
With Emily Heil
The blog: washingtonpost.com/
intheloop. Twitter:InTheLoopWP.
Loading...
Comments