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LOU CHIBBARO JR
Friday, March 14, 2008
A prominent gay adviser to the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama resigned Tuesday after reports surfaced that he wrote a blistering denunciation of rival presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton that brought up President Bill Clinton’s extra-marital affair with a White House intern.
Maxim Thorne, a member of the Obama campaign’s GLBT Leadership Council and former chief operating officer at the Human Rights Campaign, wrote that Hillary Clinton should disclose her whereabouts “when Monica was having sex with Bill.” Thorne penned his message in a lengthy e-mail to a listserv with hundreds of recipients, according to a report in Politico.
“[W]hen Bin Laden was building Al Qaeda, Bill and she were fighting impeachment, fighting Paula Jones, fighting Katherine Wiley,” Thorne wrote, in a reference to two women who claimed to have had affairs with President Clinton.
Thorne’s resignation from the Obama GLBT Leadership Council came after Obama campaign spokesperson Tommy Vietor issued a statement saying, “These comments have no place in this campaign.”
The Thorne resignation also came during the same week that former Democratic congresswoman and vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro resigned from the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign after commenting that Obama achieved his status as frontrunner in the race for delegates only because he is black.
Ferraro, who added that Obama “would not be in this position” if he were white or a woman, drew the immediate rebuke of Clinton, who said she strongly disagrees with Ferraro’s statement.
“There is a small core of angry people on both sides who say things they obviously regret later,” said Gary Fitzsimmons, the openly gay Dallas County, Texas, clerk, co-founder of the Stonewall Democrats of Dallas and an Obama campaign worker.
“But most people know this is a debate within the Democratic Party and they will unite behind the nominee, whichever one of the two it turns out to be,” Fitzsimmons said.
Fitzsimmons and Jesse Garcia, president of the Dallas Stonewall Democrats and a Clinton supporter, each have vowed to put aside their differences and work on behalf the Democratic presidential nominee, saying the cause for gay civil rights would suffer if the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, were to win the presidency in November.
The two acknowledged, however, that the Clinton-Obama rivalry for last week’s Texas primary and caucuses was intense, with gays joining their straight counterparts in battling for votes in key precincts in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin, among other places.
Clinton won the Texas primary by a margin of 51 percent to 47 percent while Obama came out ahead in the state’s caucuses, capturing slightly more delegates than Clinton.
Jin Chon, a spokesperson for the Clinton campaign, said that Clinton campaigned in gay neighborhoods in Dallas and gave interviews to gay newspapers in Texas and Ohio by phone. Clinton also won the Ohio primary.
The Obama campaign reached out to gays in the two states, according to campaign official Eric Stern, by submitting full-page ads to gay newspapers and releasing a statement on gay issues.
Obama won the Mississippi primary on Tuesday by a margin of 60 percent to 38 percent and came out ahead in caucuses held last Saturday in Wyoming.
Although Obama continues to lead Clinton in delegates, Democratic Party officials say the delegate count remains too close to predict who will win the nomination. The next primary is set for April 22 in Pennsylvania.
Many gay Democratic activists backing both Clinton and Obama from other states, including from the D.C. area, have already traveled to Pennsylvania to campaign in gay strongholds in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh on behalf of the candidate of their choice, spokespersons from the two campaigns said.
This week, the Obama campaign released a list identifying 40 prominent gay rights advocates as Obama supporters. Stern, who works on gay-related issues for the campaign, said the new list represents a sign of growing support for Obama among gay leaders, including those who bring organizing and administrative skills to the campaign.
Among the gay leaders on the newly released Obama list are Kevin Jennings, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network; Jeremy Bishop, executive director of the gay labor group Pride At Work; Craig Bowman, former executive director of the National Youth Advocacy Coalition; Glen Maxey, former Texas state representative; David Pena, executive director of the National Hispanic Business Association; and Donna Rose, former board member of HRC and a transgender activist.
Thorne’s resignation from the Obama GLBT Leadership Council over his controversial e-mail raised eyebrows among gay activists, who wondered whether it was a sign that some of the bitterness surfacing between the Clinton and Obama camps would spill over into the gay community.
Thorne holds a law degree and bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from Yale University. Before becoming chief operating officer at HRC, he served as executive director of New Jersey’s Head Start program and headed the Passaic County, N.J., Legal Aid Society.
Thorne could not immediately be reached for comment.
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