By Lisa Keen
Keen on the trail
Keen News Service
GAY MAYOR SNUBBED: Openly gay super delegate and Democratic gay mayor David Cicilline of Providence, Rhode Island, announced some time ago that he supports Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. But according to Associated Press, Clinton asked him not to come to her rally in Providence. According to AP, Clinton feared negative repercussions from Cicilline's ongoing dispute with a firefighters union there. AP said Cicilline was "disappointed" by Clinton's request.
MODEL QUESTION: Fashion model Tyra Banks grilled Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee about his views on homosexuality during a February 29 segment of her Oxygen channel talk show. Huckabee replied: "It's not like I'm some homophobe. If you ask me is it the normal pathway? I don't think so. But, you know, I respect that people have different views about that." She asked tough questions about his stance on gay marriage, too. He said gay marriage is "not a good thing." "I'm asking you some many questions about this," said Banks, "because I love the gays and the gays love me. And I know I cannot walk down the street here in New York City if I didn't press that issue and truly ask you that." Huckabee, after losing all four primaries to John McCain Tuesday, dropped out of the race.
DEGENERES ENDORSEMENT? Ellen DeGeneres "interviewed" Hillary Clinton on Monday, February 25, by satellite, broadcast and the popular lesbian talk show host appeared to all but endorse the candidate. DeGeneres' broadcast beamed into an auditorium at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where Clinton was campaigning. Among other things, DeGeneres asked Clinton what her supporters can do to help her.
L WORD INTERVIEW: Jennifer Beals, an actor on Showtime's lesbian drama The L Word and a supporter of Barack Obama, solicited questions from the show's website, http://OurChart.com, to ask the Obama campaign's LGBT Policy Committee. Beals said the response was the "most trafficked post in OurChart history" and she e-mailed a videotape of her interview with Tobias Wolf.
HE'S BACK: Proverbial presidential third wheel Ralph Nadar announced February 24 that he will make yet another run for the White House. Despite the fact that Democrats have seen record-setting turn outs at the polls during the primary campaigns, Nadar told NBC's Meet the Press that he's running because he thinks most voters are dissatisfied with the Democratic and Republican parties. In 2004, Nadar received less than one percent of the vote. He's already announced that he has chosen a gay friendly former San Francisco Supervisor, Matt Gonzalez, as a running mate.
"LINING UP APPOINTMENTS: "Do you want to work for the next President of the United States?" That's the leading question on the website of the Gay & Lesbian Leadership Institute right now. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain have all said they would consider it presumptuous to start talking about a vice-presidential running mate before winning their party's nomination. But the Leadership Institute -comprised of the Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, and Stonewall Democrats– is undaunted. It is compiling a list is of openly gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender prospects for the new administration "whoever is elected this November," says its leader Chuck Wolfe. The goal of the coalition's "Presidential Appointments Project" is to ensure that "qualified, committed and talented members of the LGBT community have a fair shot at being appointed to important positions." The project's website makes clear that it has no official role" in the hiring of any government personnel" but that it plans to vet the applications of interested parties and present the ones it approves to the next administration. Interested parties can submit their applications online at http://www.GLLI.org.
