Ken Mehlman, President Bush’s campaign manager, said he would not talk
about the private lives of staff members when asked if he or any others in the
president’s campaign organization were openly gay. (Photo by AP)
Experts say N.C., Indiana results spell end of Clinton campaign
Va. woman, husband fought to overturn ban on interracial unions
Constitutional ban, high court ruling both in the works
Says call to withhold money no longer ‘relevant’
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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.
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.
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.
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.”
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