WASHINGTON – Supporters of same-sex marriage have a new and unexpected advocate: Ken Mehlman, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and manager of President George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign.
Mehlman, now a private citizen and businessman, disclosed last week that he is gay. The timing of the revelation coincides with his participation in a September fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights, a group that advocates for same-sex marriage.
“It’s something I wish I had come to terms with earlier,” he said in a telephone conversation Thursday. “It has made me a happier and better person. But I wish I had had the courage to have spoken out earlier.”
Mehlman is among the most prominent Republican officials to say that he is gay. His is an announcement of the most personal nature and yet, because of who he is and the intensity of the debate over same-sex marriage, one with potential political implications. It is also one that, at least initially, will provoke potentially difficult questions from his critics.
Mehlman enjoyed a remarkable rise in Republican politics. A Harvard Law School graduate and classmate of President Obama, he joined Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign and was dispatched to Iowa. There he quickly proved his mettle as one of the sharpest and most energetic political talents in the Bush orbit - and one well-liked by his colleagues.
When Bush entered the White House, Mehlman followed as political director. Because of his political smarts and leadership skills, he was tapped to run the re-election campaign, part of a senior management team led by Karl Rove. That campaign adopted a strategy of seizing on state ballot initiatives opposing same-sex marriage to help mobilize and turn out conservative voters.
After the re-election campaign, Mehlman became RNC chairman. He was 38.
He left after the 2006 midterms, in which his party took a beating, to join a law firm and later moved to his current employer, the private equity firm KKR.
Mehlman described his coming out as a personal journey that brought him to accept that he is gay. Asked whether he would have been able to accomplish what he did inside the party had he known then and stated at the time that he was gay, he demurred. “I’m not going to speculate on that,” he said. “I don’t know the answer to that.”
The immediate reaction to Mehlman’s announcement has been generally sympathetic. He said Bush and former first lady Laura Bush, whom he told before he went public with news, reacted in a “wonderful” way.
Other GOP friends have been similarly understanding, even those who disagree with his position on same-sex marriage.
Vin Weber, a former GOP representative from Minnesota, said there is a reasonable response to any suggestion Mehlman has been hypocritical: He worked for a president who had a view on the issue of same-sex marriage, and Mehlman’s job was to implement the policies and strategies of the president, “regardless of his own views.”
Ed Gillespie, who preceded Mehlman as RNC chairman, said Bush’s opposition to same-sex marriage in the 2004 campaign was a reaction to a Massachusetts supreme court ruling legalizing such unions.
They did not start the fight, he said.
Mehlman worked tirelessly as party chairman to broaden the base of the Republican Party, particularly by efforts to attract more African Americans.
“I tried hard to expand the party into new neighborhoods,” Mehlman said. He now wishes the gay community had been among them.
The disclosure comes at a time of heightened debate about same-sex marriage, thanks to a federal court decision overturning California’s voter-approved ban, and at a time when there is evidence of shifting attitudes toward gay marriages that over time could put the Republican Party on the wrong side of public opinion.
But Republican strategists said they doubted Mehlman’s disclosure would prompt the GOP to rethink its platform at this time. “I don’t think there’s going to be a rush to change the views of the party on those issues,” Weber said. But he said it should remind Republicans there is a constituency of gay Americans who hold conservative views on many issues.
A number of prominent Republicans have broken with their party on the issue, among them former Vice President Dick Cheney, Laura Bush and strategist Steve Schmidt, who was John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign manager.
But the issue conflicts both parties, as Gillespie, who opposes same-sex marriage, pointed out. “Interestingly enough,” he said, “I’m aligned with President Obama and his position, and Ken is aligned with Vice President Cheney and his position. It doesn’t break cleanly along party lines.”
