Dec 22, 2006  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO J  | COMMENTS     

The board of directors of the national gay group Log Cabin Republicans this week appointed Patrick Sammon, a former television news reporter and the interim head of the organization since September, its new president.

Sammon, 32, takes the helm of the gay GOP group at a time when Republicans lost control of Congress in the 2006 elections and when most of the party’s leadership continues to support a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

“Log Cabin’s mission is more important than ever before,” Sammon said in a statement released Dec. 18. “I will provide a strong voice for those in our party who believe the GOP can return to power by pursuing a unifying and inclusive conservative agenda that attracts voters from both the center and the right.”

Sammon has been credited with using his skills as a broadcaster during appearances over the past several months on national network news programs, where he discussed the 2004 elections and the congressional page scandal engulfing former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.).

He referred to Foley’s sexually explicit instant messages over the internet to teenage former pages as “disgraceful” and called on authorities to prosecute Foley if it could be determined he violated any laws.

He also used his television appearances on networks like CNN, ABC News and MSNBC to denounce anti-gay groups for attempting to use the Foley scandal to advance their political agendas.

While praising him for being an articulate spokesperson for gay causes, some gay rights advocates and GOP political insiders are likely to question whether Sammon’s lack of experience in political campaigns and party politics could hinder his ability to navigate the group through the remaining two years of the Bush administration and the upcoming 2008 presidential election.

Patrick Guerriero, Sammon’s predecessor, won election as a state representative and mayor of a medium-sized city in Massachusetts before becoming Log Cabin president in 2003. The group’s founding president, Rich Tafel, served in the administration of Republican Gov. William Weld, also in Massachusetts, and worked in various GOP political campaigns before coming to Log Cabin in 1993.

“He is a different person than Patrick Guerriero and Rich Tafel, but we all thought he is great for the job,” said Bob Kabel, former president of the Log Cabin board and a current member of board of the Liberty Education Forum, a non-partisan educational arm of Log Cabin.

The Log Cabin president serves as head of both groups, which operate out of the same offices in Washington.

Kabel, who also serves as chair of the Republican Party of the District of Columbia, said the boards of both groups voted unanimously to pick Sammon as president. He said the boards interviewed about 12 candidates for the job.

According to a biography released by Log Cabin, Sammon worked from 1999 to 2002 as a television news reporter at WJHL News Channel 11, a CBS News affiliate in the tri-city area including Johnston City and Kingsport, Tenn., and the City of Bristol, which spans the states of Virginia and Tennessee. In 2002, the Tennessee Associated Press Broadcasters Association named him for an award for “Best News Writing” in the state.

Prior to working at WJHL, Sammon worked for three years as a TV news reporter at WWNY-TV, the CBS affiliate in Watertown, N.Y. Sammon, a native of Seattle, moved to D.C. in 2003, where he worked as a freelance associate producer for a documentary production company called Manifold Productions, in Chevy Chase, Md.

He joined the staff of Liberty Education Forum, the Log Cabin educational arm, in January 2004.

Sammon discussed his own political views and the philosophy of Log Cabin Republicans in a television interview last month with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. Blitzer asked him why he remains a Republican in the midst of continuing Republican opposition to gay rights.

“There are hundreds of thousands of gay and lesbian Americans just like me,” he said. “We don’t believe government is the solution to every problem. We believe in a strong national defense, limited government and low taxes. And we believe in the core values in the Republican Party,” he told Blitzer.