Posted on 11/16/2004 12:30:33 PM PST by Hillary's Lovely Legs
Bush campaign mum on any openly gay staffers Cheney runs father’s campaign but other advisers said ‘guarded’ about sexual orientation
By ADRIAN BRUNE Friday, May 28, 2004
When George W. Bush ran for president in 2000, he refused to meet with the Log Cabin Republicans.
But eventually — after he clinched the GOP nomination and was eager to brandish his image as a “compassionate conservative” — he met with the so-called “Austin 12,” a group of gay party activists who supported his candidacy.
In early April of that year, the dozen handpicked supporters, including D.C. Council member David Catania, flew to Austin, Texas, for what turned out to be an emotional meeting with the candidate at campaign headquarters.
Those present said at the time that Bush listened carefully to the Austin 12, declared himself a “better man” for having heard their concerns, and pledged to keep in place gay-friendly executive orders. In turn, his gay supporters helped Bush reap an estimated 25 percent of the gay vote.
Four years later, Bush has formally called for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and alienated not only members of the Austin 12, but also any openly gay Republican previously willing to work on his campaign, according to Catania.
“I would be completely surprised if there were any gay staffers in his campaign, at least in the upper echelon,” Catania said. “I don’t think that we’re welcome.”
It’s a factor that Catania said he believes will cost Bush the election, just as Barry Goldwater’s dismissal of blacks and the Civil Rights Act in 1964 resulted in sweeping victory for Lyndon Johnson, he said.
Mary Cheney, Dick Cheney’s openly gay daughter, works as director of vice-presidential operations, but the Bush table otherwise remains devoid of openly gay advisers.
“I’m not going to comment or provide information on the private activities of campaign staff,” said Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman, when asked if there were out gays among the president’s campaign advisers. “The president is leading based on principle. His principles are reflective of his values and his values are compassionate and conservative.”
Gay political organizations, both partisan and nonpartisan, have so far declined to formally reprimand the Bush campaign on its lack of diversity. Publicly, they continue to stay on message by denouncing Bush’s policies, not his staff.
In the closet Yet, many gay Republicans, including some at Log Cabin, insist that there is in fact gay representation at the top level of the operation. But in an attempt to avoid an ’80s-style outing campaign against prominent members of the party, members of Log Cabin and the Austin 12 have refused to divulge any information about the lives of Bush’s closeted staffers.
“The reality is there are gay men and women working in tons of Republican offices, in the White House and in the president’s re-election campaign,” said Chris Barron, Log Cabin’s political director, repeating a quote he gave last month to the New York Times Magazine. “That’s all Log Cabin is willing to say on the matter.”
Patrick Guerriero, the executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, said he has attended White House events, including one in which he personally asked the president not to endorse the amendment.
Bush’s support for the amendment has sent some gay Republican reeling. Now that conservatives have seized upon same-sex marriage as a wedge issue, many gay Hill staffers and campaign aides — who were largely hired before the marriage issue erupted — either personally fear for their jobs if they come out, or have been asked to keep their sexual orientation a secret, Republican staffers told the Blade.
“If gay advisers on the Bush campaign are smart and if they want a future, I expect they are being very guarded about their sexual orientation,” Catania said.
Top Bush team varies in ideologies The top advisers on the Bush campaign — the approximately 15 in touch daily with Karl Rove, Bush’s top strategist — actually represent an array of Republican political ideologies. They range in spectrum from campaign chair Marc Racicot, the gay-friendly former governor of Montana, to legislative director Elise Finley, who came to Bush headquarters from her position as chief of staff to Rep. John Shaddegg (R-Ariz.), a strong opponent of gay rights.
Catania, who raised $80,000 for the president’s campaign before he dropped his support after Bush’s amendment remarks, calls the most visible Bush campaign staffer, Ken Mehlman, “the finest person I’ve met on the Bush campaign.”
Mehlman, a Maryland native and graduate of Harvard Law School, ascended through the Bush ranks during the 2000 campaign, after which he landed as director of political affairs at the White House. Known as a savvy political operative and for his businesslike demeanor, Mehlman leads the 173-member staff at campaign headquarters in Arlington, as well as the 110 additional field operatives across the country.
Mehlman has remained personally silent on gay issues — strictly echoing the president’s posture — but he has also met with the Log Cabin Republicans in his former capacity in the administration, according to Kevin Ivers, a political consultant.
“The president believes a marriage is between a man and a woman, and there are appropriate structures in place for legal arrangements between gay couples,” Mehlman said in a brief interview last week.
Unmarried and has few hobbies outside of politics, Mehlman has called his vocation, his “avocation.” At the age of 37, he supervises the spending of more than $250 million to re-elect the president.
Future of the GOP Racicot, the other top adviser to the campaign that Catania mentioned as gay friendly, angered Christian conservatives in March 2003 when he addressed 300 members of the Human Rights Campaign, just two months before Bush named him campaign chair when he was still heading up the Republican National Committee.
“Marc Racicot is the future of the party. I imagine he has to hold his nose a lot of the time in this campaign,” Catania said. “If the rest of the party operated according to Racicot’s views, it wouldn’t be in such trouble.”
While governor of Montana, Racicot enacted a state employee non-discrimination policy that included sexual orientation, attempted to repeal the state’s sodomy law in 1993 and opposed legislative efforts in 1995 to add gay people to Montana’s sexual offenders’ registry. The HRC praised the Bush administration’s selection of Racicot to lead the Republican National Committee in December 2001.
However, selections such as Finley and Southeast chair Ralph Reed, the former director of the Christian Coalition, diminish the efforts of Bush’s progressive leaders in the campaign, prominent Republicans say. Unlike Kerry, Bush does not have a liaison to gay voters, and the campaign roster lists no other minority outreach adviser.
Catania, once a Bush delegate to this summer’s GOP convention, now echoes the social viewpoints of Democrats when it comes to diversity and the campaign. He has rescinded his once strong support for Bush, choosing instead to abstain from voting in this election.
“The president and his advisers have no interest in having gays and lesbians be a part of his team, nor do they have much interest in having anyone else but a bunch of middle-aged white guys,” Catania said. “They wonder why they have only 6 percent of the African-American vote, for example, but I don’t think it occurs to them that their staff reflects their priorities.”
Gotta agree with several posters, C.C. Who cares? The guy's obviously a political wunderkind. As long as he's not porking the staff, let him do his job.
Ken and Ralph Reed were invaluable on election eve... When Drudge came on Sean's show, and started reading the poor exit poll results, Sean spoke to Reed on the ground in Fl. Reed said that Drudge is absolutely wrong, that they've EXCEEDED their election expectations, and that they would win Fl. Mehlman did the same exact thing on Ohio, confidently predicting that we would definitely take it. They're both excellent.
Only his hairdresser knows for sure.
If he does his job well and doesn't use his position to push a queer agenda, I do not care.
So, we should wonder if Mehlman is gay because he's 37 and unmarried? Sorry, I don't do that.
Mehlman worked really, really hard for President Bush and that is what is important.
If you don't know then he must be keeping it to himself. If he is keeping it to himself, why do you ask the question, or care?
Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but...oh hell.
Here's one possible reason it may be relevant - because if he is, expect the biggest smear campaign since Clarence Thomas was named to the SCt. Remember, the Dems love gays, until they don't parrot the party line. If there's any hint of this about Mehlman, the Dems will engage in an enthusiastically hypocritical orgy of gay bashing. Tolerance? Don't count on it.
I think you're saying the same thing. Dogey may have omitted the , - it should have been "I don't care, if he's competent".
So you're reporting rumors by a gay newspaper that is hostile to republican causes. Heck, they think Jesus is gay.
Maybe he likes to have his girlfriend tie him up and whip him with wet noodles. You want people to go poking around and find this stuff out? Then what will you have accomplished?
Have you tried changing your phone number and e-mail address? :)
I am a Christian social con, but I frankly don't care what his sexual preference is.
As RNC chair, he won't be in a position that I would be concerned about having a gay agenda influence on the GOP.
Yeah, as chair he has some influence, but the platform isn't going to change just because of something he wants.
Folks, did you know that 26% of Gays and Lesbians voted for GW Bush? Amazing, isn't it!!! You know why? Because they get it!!! They know that if John Kerry was elected President, it wouldn't be the closet they would be put into, it would be the coffin. Along with economic reasons, they realize that Muslim terrorists hate Gays and Lesbians. And...with "traitor" John Kerry as POTUS, the terrorists would have won a great victory and an opportunity to begin open season murder on Americans especially Jews, Women, Gays and Blacks. The 26% of Gays that voted for Bush know that John Kerry and the Democrat Party will never protect the United States or its citizens!!! I really don't care whether Ken Mehlman is gay or not. He is super smart, hates and wants to destroy the current Democrat "Treason" Party, and that is good enough for me.
And I know Ken and I never thought he was gay, but I don't have gaydar that works.
I couldn't care less about Mehlman's sexuality, it doesn't matter. But if I am getting calls about this and it's all over the blogs, I thought I would put it out for discussion.
As far as I know he's very driven and maybe has no time or interest to date.
If he can do the job and he's not bringing a sexual agenda to the position I'm fine with Bush picking him.
Nah, and Colin Powell is only badly sunburned.
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