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Loading ...Bid for gay commerce secretary ignored
02.25.2009 2:27pm EST
(Washington) President Barack Obama on Wednesday named former Washington governor Gary Locke to head the Commerce Department, ignoring a grassroots effort by an LGBT group to have an openly gay man nominated for the job.
Equal Rep had been pressing to have Fred Hochberg appointed as Commerce Secretary.After Obama’s first choice, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, withdrew Equal Rep began lobbying for Hochberg. Instead, Obama nominated him to become Chair of the Export-Import Bank.
When Obama’s second choice, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) dropped out less than a week after being selected, the group renewed its call for Hochberg to be appointed to Commerce, urging its members to write, call and e-mail the White House.
From 1998 through 2000, Hochberg served as deputy, then acting administrator, of the Small Business Administration, an agency elevated to cabinet rank by President Bill Clinton, with more than 4,000 employees and 100 offices across the country.
At the SBA, he directed the delivery of a comprehensive set of financial and business development programs for entrepreneurs, with particular outreach to women and minorities. He also served on President Clinton’s Management Council.
From 1994 to 1998, Hochberg worked as founder and president of Heyday Company, a private investment firm managing real estate, stock market investments, and venture capital projects. Prior to that, he was president and chief operating officer of the Lillian Vernon Corporation, where he led the transformation of a small family mail order company into a publicly traded direct marketing corporation, one of the great success stories of American entrepreneurship.
Hochberg still is awaiting confirmation to the Export-Import Bank.
The Export-Import Bank of the United States, known as Ex-Im Bank, is the official export credit agency of the United States. Ex-Im Bank’s mission is to assist in financing the export of U.S. goods and services to international markets.
Ex-Im Bank enables U.S. companies — large and small — to turn export opportunities into real sales that help to maintain and create U.S. jobs and contribute to a stronger national economy.
In announcing Locke’s nomination for Commerce Secretary Obama praised him as a man who shares his vision for turning around the economy, and someone who knows the American dream.
A Democrat, Locke was the nation’s first Chinese-American governor, serving two terms from 1997 to 2005.
If confirmed by the Senate, he would assume control of a large agency with a broad portfolio that includes overseeing the 2010 census, oceans policy and many aspects of international trade.
Any upset over this is understandable. Everything Obama does is drenched in symbolism. He does nothing without an angle for public consumption. His Cabinet has been carefully stacked with people from all the “right” groups to showcase diversity.
That no LGBT people are at that table also conveys a symbolic message: we’re not as important as Asians, Blacks, Latinos or Republicans.
This is country where it is still nearly impossible for an openly LGBT person to get elected to a national office. There are two gay men and one lesbian (openly at least) in Congress! To say we are underrepresented would be an understatement!
So while I think that Obama is the correct choice to be dealing with the economic crisis (as compared to McCain or Clinton), I do not believe that he is a strong ally of the LGBT community. We are going to have to either be more aggressive in pressuring him or else focus our political support elsewhere.
Yeah, Cadence. And Truman hired Black help in the White House kitchen. What exactly is your point?
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Cadence Said on February 25th, 2009 at 5:42 pm: “Bud, since President Obama has nominated and hired gay people in other posts, what exactly is your point?”
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So, not one single member of the GLBT community was qualified for a Cabinet post. BullSh*t!
…Got the point now, Cadence?
Gary Locke is a good man, and a good choice for the position.
Why anyone would be surprised that Barak “I don’t believe in gay marriage” Obama is not supporting us is beyond me….
I can’t say I’m terribly surprised. Obama has done nothing but distance himself from the gay community since we helped him get to the Whitehouse.
When gays were in an uproar over Rick Warren the Inaugural committee silently slipped Bishop Gene into a fringe appearance a day before the acual Inauguaral event. Obama never addressed the many voices of outraged gays.
In speech after speech, appearance after appearance there gay America has been the one group glaringly unmentioned.
Mr President, your silence is deafening.
Is this a News Story or an Editoral? As a gay man volunteering in the GLBT community, I’m not really all that concerned if a gay man becomes commerce secretary. How do we know the lobbying efforts were ignored? Sounds to me like he choose to place Hochberg in a position he seems to do well in. I hardly call that ignored. Also, with the background you posted in this article, it sounds like Hochberg will fit quite well as the Chair of the Export-Import Bank.
All I hear when Obama craps on the GLBT community is: “Lesser of two evils! Lesser of two evils!!” …Please, wake up people, can we just stop picking “evil” for a change?
…Uh, “For a Change You Can (‘t) Believe In” …LOL!
(!!!Oh, how O’Barfable!!!)
…and pathetic too. As the GLBT community lines up for another eight year ass-kicking.
PS – I love Sean Penn. I heard that they tried to rush a “CRASH 2″ to the Academy Awards to thwart any GLBT related movie from winning, but they got “Scumdog Millionaire” to fill in for them so they didn‘t have to.
Here’s an idea! Maybe, Obama could hire someone to “play Gay” and then appoint him to a Cabinet post? Sean Penn perhaps? Just an idea to float out there. It just might work!!!
As a gay Washington State resident, I am thrilled by the choice of Gary Locke. He was a wonderful governor and is a great choice for Commerce Secretary.
the right man or woman for the job, regardless of sexual orienatation.
Many comments here are missing the point. It’s not that Obama should have nominated a GLBT Commerce Secretary, it is that there appears to be no seat of any consequence at the table for any GLBT person.
I second Cadence’s thoughts on the matter; to use the word “ignored” is not appropriate just because some folks didn’t get what they wanted.
When you work for a third political party, Bud Evans, you might as well work for the repugnicans.
It could take 50 years to become significant. If it happens at all. And the other thing it does is make it just that much easier for the Christian fascists and their republican party to win.
I maybe understand your frustrations, but as a player, low level, in the political process I can ask only one question : Do you realize how your views could hurt the gay community, and in effect bring us another monstrosity – a reborn by another name maggot named George Bush and his gang?
Or are you a plant of the republican party – whose goal is to divide the gay community, and make it just that much less a player in the circus we call politics.
Please understand that frustration cannot be the judge of action. And that being a plant designed to divide the gay community is a simple trick. You cannot immagine what sorts of sophisticated tricks have been played by the repugnicans and their fascist Christian buddies, who destroyed our economy, gave us Iraq, and used religious hatred of gays to get elected to do all these nefarious things.
And once again, a new political party could take decades to gain a significant following. And given the republican party’s almost total corruption of their soul, You’d have no choice except to vote with the dems, or effectively be voting for our own born agains in that party – some obviously related to adolf hitler.
So SteveMD2 thinks that anyone who criticizes the Democrats, especially Obama, is a plant for the Republicans. That is pathetic on two counts: either SteveMD2 is a paranoid or a sycophant or both. On the first count, mental health care is recommended; if it is the second case, you can keep your knee pads with the DNC donkey emblazoned on it. Unlike you, some of us in the GLBT community actually don‘t care to be political eunuchs for the Dems or any political party which does not represent us as fully equal American citizens.
The scared-rabbit hebbie-jebbies about how a third party would be the ruination of any chance that GLBT civil rights legislation could pass in Congress is purely asinine. Most other democracies have more than two political parties. In fact, in many cases it has been the only way minority voices were heard. It has also become abundantly clear that this is a major reason that we, in the US, are so far behind in civil rights protections for our most vulnerable citizens as compared to other Western nations.
Canada has several political parties and GLBT rights were helped, not hindered by it. Most of Europe also does. Coalitions can be formed so that not one political party can dominate the government. Cooperation is essential and, as I stated, many minority concerns are then given a voice which might not have been the case if only two major, so-called “mainstream” parties were the only voices heard.
A US President would have to walk a fine line and deal with third party concerns. He would not have the dictatorial luxury of his own party simply rubber-stamping his legislative agenda as a means to further his own personal political goals. Likewise, neither would he have to fear that an opposition party would completely dominate either and negate all of his proposals purely out of political spite.
And no, SteveMD2, I am not a “plant” for the vile Republican neo-Nazi party, but neither am I a masochistic slave for the treacherous Democrats who have stolen my support all of these years and given me nothing in return but lies. Yes, the same back-stabbing Democrats who have shown the GLBT community their not so subtle contempt for our kind by ignoring us altogether after election day.
Don’t forget, it was a Democratic president who signed into law DADT and DOMA — the only federal anti-gay laws ever passed by congress (and DADT by a fully Democratic-controlled Congress nonetheless). Bill Clinton didn’t even have the balls to veto those two monumental bigoted pieces of legislative hate. Even if his veto was overridden, he could have stood on principle with his veto– except that he was too busy getting blowjobs from a fat skank then to be bothered with “principles“. He didn’t, as most Democrats, give a crap about how these two major homophobic federal laws would profoundly affect the lives of the 30 million of our GLBT brothers and sisters in America for years to come.
We are only “useful” to the Democrats during a close election; then we are kicked to the curb afterwards as a “political liability”. So grow up, SteveMD2, and think outside of the box — or rather outside of the metaphorical political prison cell you put yourself in — and don’t let anyone, especially manipulating Democratic politicians, think that they are your last hope and only alternative. If you do, then you not only betray yourself, but the entire GLBT community.
Grow a pair and let your representatives in Congress know that there are plenty of GLBT voters in your area, and that these politicians cannot take for granted that those votes will be there for them next time if they don’t deliver the goods — Quid Pro Quo. And don’t let them for a minute believe that they are your only option. If you do, then you have already lost.
~ Bud Evans
http://rainfish2000.blogspot.com