Aug 15, 2008  |  By: CHRIS JOHNSON  | COMMENTS     

As the Democratic National Convention fast approaches, former supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign are joining Sen. Barack Obama’s gay steering and policy committee.

Among the most prominent new members of Obama’s campaign is U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), the only openly lesbian member of Congress. The Obama campaign recently invited Baldwin to join the committee as co-chair alongside sitting chair Tobias Wolff, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Baldwin served as the head of Clinton’s gay steering committee during the senator’s bid for the presidency.

Baldwin told the Blade that she was interested in joining Obama’s committee because “the contrast is stark” between Obama and Republican presidential hopeful John McCain on gay issues.

“It matters to LGBT people in America who wins the next election,” she said.

Baldwin said she feels “a special role” in communicating the difference between Obama and McCain to the gay voters — and highlighting this contrast will be a primary goal of Obama’s committee.

The committee currently has about 100 members and is still growing. An expanded roster is expected to be announced at the Democratic convention at the end of this month.

Wolff said the committee consists of “community leaders and people with substantive expertise on LGBT issues.”

The policy committee was formed in June 2007, but was recently renamed the steering and policy committee with the shift in focus to the general election.

Wolff said the committee provides policy input to the Obama campaign on gay issues and alerts the campaign to important events and state and local developments.

In a letter published Aug. 6 on the Obama campaign web site, Baldwin says she is working to get Obama elected as president because they both “share a commitment to equality for all Americans.”

Baldwin emphasizes that she is working to elect Obama as president not because she wants to keep “toeing a party line” but because she thinks Obama will be an effective leader.

Baldwin told the Blade that if McCain were elected president, gay Americans would not have an ally in the White House and would “see the same sort of impasse on important issues that we have seen for the last many years of Republican control.”

Other former Clinton supporters who have joined Obama’s gay policy committee include Mandy Carter, a lesbian North Carolina activist; Jesse Garcia, president of the Dallas Stonewall Democrats; and Peter Rosenstein, a gay D.C. activist.

Obama campaign spokesperson Ben LaBolt said Clinton attracted strong support from gay leaders during the primaries. The Obama campaign is “grateful that so many of those supporters have joined our efforts to bring the change to Washington that we desperately need,” LaBolt said.

Baldwin said Obama’s decision to bring so many Clinton supporters on board “is clear sign of unity in the party and momentum building behind Sen. Obama’s campaign.”

Not all the recent additions to the gay committee came from the Clinton camp. Marsha Botzer, a former co-chair of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force board of directors, supported Obama through the primaries.

Botzer, who is transgender and a Seattle-based gender identity consultant, said she was interested in climbing aboard the committee because Obama’s candidacy was “a historical moment” and represents “an opportunity for change not only for the LGBT community but for the larger community as well.”

Botzer said she expects an Obama presidency would bring “the opportunity for every citizen to be treated equally.”

The expansion of Obama’s committee is not the only recent move that Obama has made to engage gay voters. The presidential hopeful also expressed a commitment to gays in a recent letter to the Family Equality Council, an advocacy group for gay families.

In the Aug. 1 letter, Obama says he intends to “do more to support and strengthen LGBT families” such as repealing the anti-gay federal Defense of Marriage Act and extending “equal treatment” in adoption laws.

Family Equality Council also requested a letter from McCain, but the campaign has not replied.