In a city where influence is everything, these one hundred individuals rise to the top. Some are wealthy, but many are not. They represent a wide variety of professional fields, from faith to finance; but they all share two common traits: They work outside the federal government and hold sway inside the Beltway.
John Podesta and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Photo by Tony Powell
Location: The Fairfax at Embassy Row and Jockey Club Lounge
WL HOSTED EVENT – Photos by Tony Powell, Kyle Samperton, and Joseph Allen
A musical celebration with speaker Nancy Pelosi, John Podesta and Warren Haynes
TRANSITION TOASTS: The week of inauguration festivities kicked off with a Washington Life hosted high-octane gathering of power players who were at the heart of the presidential transition and inauguration planning teams.
THE SCENE: Festivities were co-sponsored by The Atlantic, National Journal, Celebrity Service International, and the Washington Capitals. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Presidential Transition Team Co-Chair John Podesta made remarks before guitar virtuoso Warren Haynes wowed the crowd with two sets, including U2’s “One” in honor of Pelosi and Podesta.
ROLL CALL: Larry Summers, Don and Megan Beyer, Michael Strautmanis, Christine Varney, Michelle Jolin, Michael Warren, Chris Matthews, Marne Levine, Vince Panvini, Todd Thompson, and Sen. Mark Warner, amongst other members of Congress and ambassadors.
MELODY BARNES
Barnes leaves the Center for American Progress to serve as Obama’s director of domestic policy. The smart and stylish lawyer was named one of Washingtonian’s “Ten Well-Dressed Women” in 2007, wherein she described her style as “understated but interesting.” Will the same hold true for her leadership qualities?
PETER ORSZAG
Another Rubin protégé, Orszag has been tapped to be Obama’s choice for the Cabinet-level post of director of the Office of Management and Budget. The experienced centrist has been particularly focused on health policy and will be involved in expanding health care coverage to more Americans.
HEATHER HIGGINBOTTOM
This former Kerry aide began her career in education policy, but has since broadened her expertise. Obama’s choice for deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council was most recently with the American Security Project, whose board includes her White House colleagues, Greg Craig and Susan Rice.
DAVID BONIOR
Outspoken in his opposition of NAFTA, the former congressman and one-time Edwards campaign manager is a longtime labor union advocate. Bonior served as the House Democratic whip for 11 years, played football for the Hawkeyes, and filed more than 75 ethics charges against former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich while in office.
RON KIRK
This partner at Houston-based law firm Vinson & Elkins is Obama’s choice for U.S. trade representative. Kirk served two terms as mayor of Dallas, endorsed Obama early, and is the only Southerner in the new Cabinet. A vocal proponent of free trade, Kirk has been involved in politics since he volunteered for George McGovern as a teenager.
CASSANDRA BUTTS
A member of the Obamas’ inner-circle, Butts will serve as deputy White House counsel. She previously formulated a universal health care plan for Dick Gephardt as his policy director in ’04. A classmate of Obama’s at Harvard Law, it was reported that they met in the financial aid office on the first day of class.
ADOLFO CARRION JR.
Helping to garner Hispanic support for Obama, the new director of the White House Office of Urban Policy has over a decade of experience in policy while serving on the New York City Council and as Bronx borough president. This former associate pastor worked as a community organizer and a middle school teacher.
TAMMY DUCKWORTH
The disabled veteran, still a major in the Illinois National Guard, has 17 years of military experience and raised $70 million for new initiatives in two years as director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs. With two artificial legs, Duckworth, completed the Chicago marathon this fall on a hand-cranked bicycle in under two-and-a-half hours.
CAROL BROWNER
Known as a Gore protégé, Browner served as administrator of the EPA for the entirety of the Clinton presidency and joins Obama’s team as the nation’s climate czar in her recently created post. She helped found the Albright Group, and tied the knot with former Rep. Tom Downey in 2007.
NANCY SUTLEY
Obama’s pick to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality served as special assistant to Carol Browner at the E.P.A., and served as deputy mayor for energy and environment in Los Angeles. Sutley was also a member of Hillary’s LGBT steering committee, and is one of a number of openly gay administration officials.
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.
The Camelot clan’s green thumb is an ardent environmentalist and an attorney and chairman of the Waterkeeper Alliance. An informal ecology advisor to the Obama team, this father of six is a licensed master falconer and former president of the New York State Falconer’s Association.
JANE LUBCHENCO
Lubchenco will be the first woman to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The former Harvard professor, currently teaching at Oregon State, served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in the late ’90s.
DAN REICHER
The director of climate and energy initiatives for Google.org and a former assistant secretary of energy, Reicher has unique expertise in commercializing green technology and venture capital. He stated, “I think that people in this business should start with their own homes and learn about the technologies.” Reicher clearly walks the walk.
JOHN HOLDREN
A trained physicist best known for his work on energy and environmental policy, Holdren will serve as assistant to the president for science and technology. The former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he is an outspoken environmentalist and a proponent of science-based solutions to the climate crisis.
KATHLEEN MCGINTY
McGinty is no stranger to environmental issues, having worked closely with Gore in the Clinton administration on the environment. She was the first woman to chair the White House Council on Environmental Quality and was founding director of the White House Office on Environmental Policy.
JOHN LESHY
The longtime professor served as solicitor (general counsel) of the Dept. of Interior under Clinton, and is now vice-chair of the board of the Wyss Foundation, which supports land conservation activities in western states. He previously served as special counsel to the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.
MARK CHILDRESS
As chief of staff to HHS Secretary Tom Daschle, Childress will be responsible for shepherding Obama’s healthcare reform legislation through the bureaucratic channels, where the five years he spent on the Hill should come in handy. The former UNC Morehead scholar will also don the title of deputy director of the new Office of Health Reform.
JEANNE LAMBREW
A career healthcare policy expert, Lambrew was at the helm of the healthcare desk at the Office of Management and Budget under Clinton. Now deputy director of the White House Office of Health Reform, Lambrew was previously with the Center for American Progress and has extensive experience with Medicaid and Medicare.
LINDA DOUGLASS
Douglass, a veteran journalist who has worked in television for more than three decades, joined the Obama campaign as a senior communications strategist in June, becoming one of the most experienced journalists ever to join a political campaign. Douglass described the transition from journalist to spokesman as similar to that of a movie critic asked to make a movie.
MARY BETH MAXWELL
The founding director of American Rights at Work, a pro-union group, Maxwell has a record as a vocal advocate for low-wage workers and unions. A former field director for Jobs With Justice, the United States Student Association and NARAL, she found her voice in social justice activism as an undergrad at Marquette University in Milwaukee.
JOHN KITZHABER
This physician and former Oregon governor serves as president of the Estes Park Institute, a Colorado-based education organization for community healthcare leaders. In 2006 Kitzhaber launched the Archimedes Movement, an organization seeking to maximize the health of the population.
DON BEYER
The Italian-born former lieutenant governor of Virginia owns eight Volvo, Land Rover, Kia and Subaru car dealerships with his wife, Megan. On Obama’s commerce transition team, Beyer is putting money behind his allies and creating new ties. A future political run is not out of the question.
ROBERT SUSSMAN
A former partner at Latham & Watkins, Sussman, who served as deputy administrator of the EPA under Clinton, is now a partner at the Center for American Progress. Currently focusing on the future of coal and global warming, he concentrated on global warming and the environmental aspects of NAFTA at the EPA.
MOZELLE THOMPSON
A former commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, where he focused on international consumer protection, technological innovation, online privacy and intellectual property, Thompson is now CEO of a self-named consulting firm that works with Facebook, SeatSmart and others.
ELENA KAGAN
The former law professor, Clinton associate White House Counsel, and first female dean of Harvard Law will take on the role as first female solicitor general with rumors swirling about a possible Supreme Court nomination down the road. Like Obama, Kagan served as editor of the Harvard ?Law Review.
DAVID OGDEN
Appointed deputy attorney general in the new administration, Ogden served on the justice department transition team. A Washington native, he served as a high-ranking official in both the justice and defense departments under Clinton. Like many other Obama staffers, he graduated from Harvard Law School.
TOM PEREZ
Having spent most of his career in public service at Justice as a federal prosecutor for the civil rights division, Perez now serves as secretary for the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation. The longtime UMD law professor and civil rights activist spent two years in the Clinton administration.
THOMAS SOTO
Co-founder of Craton Equity Partners, a large “clean technology” investment fund headquartered in SoCal, Soto is part of a team reviewing the Executive Office of the President. The environmentalist played a large role in American Airlines’ conversion of their ground service equipment to electric power and helped amend the National Clean Air Act.
GEORGE FRAMPTON
A partner in the New York office of Boies Schiller, Frampton served as chairman of the council on environmental quality during the Clinton administration and assistant secretary of the interior for fish, wildlife, and parks. A former lawyer for Gore, Frampton served as president of the non-profit Wilderness Society.
PETER GLICK
This former CEO of Cohesive Technologies, now with Ampersand Ventures, is a recognized expert in the fields of water resource retention and global water supply. Glick is the former president of Primedica Corporation, a contract research organization that provides safety and efficacy testing for the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.
JASON GRUMET
The executive director of the National Commission on Energy Policy, Grumet served as Obama’s top adviser on energy and the environment during the campaign. Known for reaching across the aisle, he co-founded the Bipartisan Policy Center, which includes Bob Dole, Tom Daschle, and George Mitchell on its advisory board.
MORT DOWNEY
Deputy transportation secretary during both of Clinton’s terms, and assistant secretary of transportation under Jimmy Carter, Downey currently runs his own transportation consulting firm, Mort Downey Consulting, and worked on the Obama transition staff as a department of transportation review team lead.
Next up: Foreign Policy
Power, above all, is influence. New York Fashion week bloggers tell Americans with authority that this is the year of the [insert arbitrary skirt length], and America purchases accordingly. The Washington socialite-hostess gathers the ripe fruit of political, economic, and cultural orchards and serves it up as one fabulous cherry bombe at a charity fundraiser or a private soiree with Cabinet secretaries and other major political players. Two men shake hands in the U.S. Senate and a bill passes – or doesn’t. The influence to effect change, be it in the minds or actions of one’s fellow man, is simultaneously the most ephemeral quantity (how does one qualify or rate it?) and the biggest driving force on our planet.
The competitive presidential election has Washingtonians hedging their bets and donating to multiple candidates.
By Roland Flamini
Esther Coopersmith (Center) pictured here with Arthur Gardner, and Susan Eisenhower, has been one of the Clinton campaign’s top “Hillraisers.”
One evening in early April, around 50 of Washington’s wealthier citizens gathered in the garden of social eminence and cause celebrant Esther Coopersmith’s opulent Kalorama home.
The occasion was a fundraiser for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Rep. John P. Murtha (D. Pa.), and Pennsylvania’s Lieutenant Governor Katherine Baker Knoll were there urging guests to dig deep into their pockets, but the candidate herself was campaigning in Pennsylvania. No matter, the New York Democratic senator had made personal appearances at two earlier Coopersmith fund-raisers, and the hostess reckoned that at this most recent event she had raised around $50,000.
Keeping the Clinton war chest replenished is Coopersmith’s current mission in life. The widening concern that Clinton’s stubborn refusal to bow out in favor of Barack Obama is doing nothing more than undermining the party’s chances of victory in November is a non-starter chez Coopersmith.
“We go all over the world talking about democracy and the importance of voting; yet Hillary’s opponents want the primary elections closed,” she says. “How can we in all conscience talk about democracy abroad if we shut off the voting rights of millions of people? I think Hillary’s the most capable, competent person, and she’s going to make a wonderful president.”
Meanwhile, across town almost contemporaneously at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, a large presence of wealthy Washingtonians who see things differently had paid $2,300 or $1,000 to thrill to Barack Obama’s verbal pirouettes. The choice of venue may have been intricately symbolic, because the conventional political wisdom is still that women tend to favor Hillary Clinton, and the museum by definition deals with exclusion. It celebrates the work of women painters and sculptors, many of whom deserve to be in mainstream museums, but are not.
Elsewhere in the District, well-heeled Republicans gathered in a private residence to coalesce around Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee and his well-bred, well dressed, well coiffed, well shaped, well almost everything wife, Cindy (but perhaps not so well versed in the culinary arts as the McCain website would have us believe).
Whichever the candidate, the purpose is the same: squeeze yet more dollars to feed the insatiable appetite of a presidential campaign that has the dubious distinction of being the longest and the costliest in the history of presidential elections, and may cross the $1 billion dollar mark before the first Tuesday in November.
The specialists will tell you that both fundraisers and contributors are feeling more than somewhat punch drunk after months of primary manslaughter. Still, the money keeps trickling in, significantly helped by floods of small ($200 and less) internet donations. For bigger donors the reasons for giving are more complex … ideology, support for the cause, the common good, the allure of a charismatic candidate are all strong motives, but so – in some cases – is opportunism. After this long and costly campaign, next year’s ambassadorial appointments and government contracts will have come at a high price.
All of which may help explain why the greater Washington area has so far been the second largest political giver after New York – $82.4 million compared to $102.4 million for presidential and congressional races. Where better than Washington to place a dollar value on power and influence? Hillary Clinton may have had a hard time raising funds in the rest of the rest of the country, but in D.C. she was the bigger beneficiary, according to Federal figures for financial contributions – $5.5 million against $4.8 for Obama. And Northwest Washington’s 20016 zip code was collectively among the largest contributors ($3,956,161). In a somewhat less scientific sample of 1,000 contributors in that zipcode, by March 31, 265 contributed to Clinton against 224 to Obama – some to both.
Some prominent Democrats who would normally be in the thick of things are still sitting on the fence, undecided whether to back Hillary Clinton or support Barack Obama. So, like Nancy “Bitsey” Folger, they contributed to both candidates. A well known social activist in Washington, Folger says that unlike in past elections, she has organized no Democratic fundraisers in this campaign because, she says, “It’s a very hard choice, I like them both. We really need to find a better system for choosing a candidate. This campaign has been so brutal; whoever wins won’t have the energy left to man the government.”
The constant grind for cash, combined with new rules limiting individual campaign contributions, have seen an increase in the role of what used to be called fund raisers, but in the new, slicker, campaign jargon are known as “bundlers” – individuals who ask friends, family, and business associates for contributions to the candidate of their choice. Contributions from individuals are limited to $2,300 for the primary campaign, and the same for the November election campaign for a total per person of $4,600. But delivery of the money “bundled” in lump sums of $50,000 beats being deluged with $2,300 checks, and campaign experts maintain that bundlers now account for more than a quarter of presidential contributions. In 2000 it was 8 percent.
Bundlers are Washington’s new secret agents, preferring to operate out of the public spotlight. Not Esther Coopersmith, who says the Clinton campaign calls its bundlers “Hillraisers,” and claims to have so far raised $450,000 for her candidate. “I keep collecting the checks and sending them on,” she says.
In the Obama camp there’s columnist Megan Beyer who, with auto dealer husband Don – a former Lieutenant Governor of Virginia – has “encouraged many of our friends and colleagues to come and meet Barack,” as Megan puts it – meetings which the website Public Citizen says have raised $200,000 for the Democrat senator from Illinois.
Like Coopersmith, however, several Democratic activists said the bottom line is loyalty to the party. “I’m a Democrat, and I’ll work with whomever is on the ticket. But (the campaign) will be easier with Hillary,” she says. On May 7, she helped organize a pro-Clinton rally for women at Washington’s Omni Shoreham Hotel called “Generations of Women,” with appearances by the candidate herself, her mother, and daughter Chelsea.
It’s hardly surprising that in Washington bundlers tend to be lawyers, given their density with respect to the population as a whole. Lobbyists would in theory also be suitable candidates, but there’s the backlash from the Abramoff and Ney scandals to consider. All three surviving presidential candidates have gone to great lengths to distance themselves from K Street, while each insinuates that the others are taking lobbyist handouts anyway. Barack does not take checks from lobbyists, “so raising money in Washington is like boxing with one arm tied behind your back,” emails Megan Beyer.
“Lobbyists are savvy enough to know that there is a stigma attached to the word ‘lobbyist,’” Monica Notzon, partner in the Bellwether Consulting Group fundraising firm, was quoted as saying. “[On their campaign contributions] they refer to themselves as ‘government relations consultants,’ or ‘public affairs directors.’”
While campaign critics continue to call for more disclosure (and they have a point), the internet is doing its part to make this the least secretive presidential campaign ever. Go to Fundrace2008 on the Huffington Post – and it’s not the only site – and you learn that AOL co-founder Jim Kimsey contributed the maximum to both John McCain and Hillary Clinton, and that former Clinton administration official and foreign policy specialist William (Bill) Nitze sent along his $2,300 check to Barack Obama. “I’m in the category of a disaffected Republican – I have become impressed with Obama, and not impressed with Hillary Clinton,” he says. Nitze belongs to a group calling themselves Republicans for Barack Obama, who have been supporting the Democratic candidate. He would like the Democratic Senator from Illinois to have more foreign policy experience. Still, he says, “I have a hunch about Obama: he’s smart and capable of learning.”
Washington attorney Lloyd Hand, meanwhile, contributed the maximum to Hillary Clinton, as did Wilhelmina Holladay, co-founder of Washington D.C.’s National Museum of Women in the Arts (she actually donated the full $4,600). But wait a minute. Wasn’t the museum where the big Obama fundraiser was held? Well, that’s Washington for you in this election year.
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