Who is Ken Mehlman?

Kenneth B. Mehlman Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Political Affairs

In January of 2001, Ken Mehlman was appointed deputy assistant to the President and director of White House political affairs. In this role, Mr. Mehlman oversees all aspects of the President Bush’s political agenda by working with members of Congress, federal agencies, state parties, and community groups.

During the general election, Mr. Mehlman served as national field director for Bush/Cheney 2000. In this role he was responsible for working with the campaign’s leadership in all 50 states to build strong grassroots teams and execute winning political plans. Mr. Mehlman directed the campaign’s operation, and worked closely with the Republican National Committee and state parties to develop and implement Victory and voter contact programs.

Mr. Mehlman served as Midwest regional political director during the primaries. As part of the 10 states for which he was responsible, he managed the Iowa team and wrote and implemented the plan that produced Governor Bush’s historic Iowa caucus victory (the highest percentage of votes for a Republican in the history of the caucus). The Iowa grassroots model was subsequently used in primaries in South Carolina, Ohio, Missouri, Virginia, Maryland, and other states.

From 1996-1999, Mr. Mehlman was Rep. Kay Granger’s (TX-12) chief of staff and he oversaw the political, legislative, and communications operations. Previously, Ken was Rep. Lamar Smith’s (TX-21) legislative director from 1994-1996.

In addition to running Granger’s campaign, Mr. Mehlman worked on William Weld’s successful 1990 campaign for governor of Massachusetts, Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine’s 1994 campaign, and House races in Virginia, Texas, and Georgia. He worked on Sen. Bob Dole’s 1996 campaign, the 1996 Republican National Convention and President George H. W. Bush’s 1992 re-election campaign.

Mr. Mehlman practiced environmental law for three years in Washington, D.C. and is a member of the D.C. and Maryland bars. He is a 1991 graduate of Harvard Law School and 1988 graduate of Franklin and Marshall College.

http://www.blogactive.com/
Editor of Washington Blade puts Mehlman's Sexual Orientation on the Table.
http://americablog.blogspot.com/archives/
2004_11_01_americablog_archive.html#110056146726432123
More gay controversy at the Republican National Committee
by John in DC - 11/16/2004 05:50:32 PM

Yesterday the RNC found itself the subject of an intense Internet-fed
guessing game as to the sexual orientation of proposed new RNC chair Ken
Mehlman (Mehlman has repeatedly refused to say on the record if he's
heterosexual). Today the new controversy is over a gay online profile
soliciting anonymous gay bareback sex - a profile that appears to include
the photo of a recently-outed top RNC staffer.

THE STORY
A Gay.com profile, appearing to to be of a senior gay Republican National
Committee staffer, suddenly disappeared this morning after it was
reported
on blogACTIVE.com that the profile allegedly belonged to gay RNC deputy
political director and national field director Dan Gurley.

Gurley had been outed as a gay man by blogACTIVE.com a few months ago,
but
it was only in the last 12 hours that the Gay.com profile became known.
It
is clear when looking at the Gay.com profile that the photos are of
Gurley
(when compared to another photo already known to be of Gurley), and it is
also clear that the profile is intended to look like it is Gurley's
profile. blogACTIVE.com and RawStory.com say they believe the profile is
Gurley's. You can read their analysis on their sites.

I look at it this way. The profile is either real or it's fake. Either
way, it's news.

1. If the profile is real, it's rather disturbing, to say the least,
since
it includes a request for barebacking (i.e., anal intercourse without a
condom). With the RNC's position on the culture wars, such activities
would be more than a bit hypocritical, and not very "family values"
friendly, coming from a top RNC staffer. (The barebacking request was in
a
separate Gay.com profile for this individual copied by blogACTIVE.com)

In addition, the Gay.com profile shows a picture presumed to be Gurley's
lover. Since the RNC recently mailed out a picture of a gay couple to
homes across the south in an effort to horrify voters and get out the
vote
for Republican candidates, it would be the height of hypocrisy for the
RNC
to turn a blind eye to such coupling by its own staff members (not to
mention, the hypocrisy of the staffer having a partner yet working for an
organization that attacks such partners (and to add to the irony, the
staffer appears to be a southerner).

2. If the profile is fake, then someone just tried to defame a senior
staffer at the RNC by posting a fake barebacking profile on Gay.com, and
that's news. If it's a fake, I'm sure Mr. Gurley will have no problem
telling a reporter that the profile is in fact a fake, as he certainly
wouldn't want folks thinking otherwise.

The latest news is that Gurley reportedly says he had a profile under
that
name at Gay.com, but deleted it shortly after he was outed in September.
In fact, I saw the profile and took a screen capture of it this morning
(below). Either way, there's a story here. And that's why I'm reporting
it. I'm sure we'll hear more about this in the coming day.

You can view the entire Gay.com profile, that I screen captured this
morning before it disappeared in:

1. Low quality (Note: I've shrunk and reduced the quality of this photo
to
make it easier to download, to see the original clear picture use the
link
below.)

2. High quality (over 1 meg)

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