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Tag: Michelle Obama
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Social Secretary Desiree Rogers is decades-old Obama pal
It is testament to her close relationship to Barack and Michelle Obama – and to members of their inner circle – that Desiree Rogers threw an intimate birthday party for her friend, Valerie Jarrett, last week. Among the guests were the president-elect and his wife.
“She has extraordinary flair and exquisite taste,” Jarrett, co-chairman of Obama’s transition team, told the Washington Post. “My party was perfect – she had my favorite food, my favorite flowers.”
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(requires Java)MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.The prominent businesswoman and Harvard MBA, who cuts a glamorous profile at Chicago’s A-list social events, was a natural choice for White House social secretary. A major fund-raiser for Obama’s presidential campaign, she is smart, well-connected and exquisitely attuned to details, say friends.
And she has been a close friend of the Obamas for decades. Rogers was once married to John W. Rogers Jr., another old pal of the Obamas, who played basketball with Michelle Obama’s brother Craig Robinson at Princeton. John Rogers, the founder of Ariel Capital Management and also a major Obama fund-raiser, is co-chairman of the president-elect’s inaugural committee.
“This appointment sends a strong message that the Obamas want to use the White House strategically . . . [to] open it to a broader range of people,” Jarrett said.
“Desiree is a heavy hitter – she comes with her own range of contacts from around the country. She’s close to Michelle and she knows everyone who will be working in the West Wing, so she will be able to create a synergy.”
The Post notes that the position of social secretary is more influential than commonly realized. Best known for staging state dinners, the social secretary is also responsible for every event or ceremony that occurs in the White House or on the grounds.
The day after the inauguration, for example, Rogers will be responsible for organizing the swearing-in of the Cabinet.
Ann Stock, a social secretary in the Clinton White House, was once charged with pulling together the signing of the historic Mideast peace agreement in four days, for 4,000 guests.
“It’s like running a small agency,” said Stock, who briefed Rogers on the job last week. “Her business savvy, her marketing skills will all come into play. Her close relationship with the Obamas is very important because she comes to the job already understanding their preferences.”
Rogers, 49, will come to the White House from Allstate Financial, where she was hired to create a social network of consumers and clients.
Prior to that, she was president of Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas, a $2-billion utility which she had headed since 2004. She worked at the company starting in 1997 as its chief marketing officer.
Besides serving on business boards like Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, Rogers is vice chairman of the board for both Lincoln Park Zoo and the Museum of Science and Industry, and is a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago.
Perhaps her most important qualification for the job of White House social secretary, Jarrett said, is that she understands the Obamas’ desire to bring in all sorts of people, “so it’s the people’s house again.”
“This campaign engaged a lot of people in ways they had not engaged before,” Jarrett said. “This is about continuing to capture that excitement.”
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This post is tagged with: Allstate Financial, Barack Obama, Desiree Rogers, John W. Rogers Jr., Michelle Obama, Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas, Politics, Recent Stories, Valerie JarrettRead related stories: Politics · Recent Stories
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Small donors played comparable roles in Obama and Bush campaignsNovember 30, 2008 at 7:28am
A new study by the Campaign Finance Institute shows that Barack Obama received about the same percentage from small donors in 2008 as George W. Bush did in 2004.
Is Tim Kaine too much like Barack Obama to be VP choice?
There’s been much speculation this week that Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine may be “very, very high” on Barack Obama’s VP shortlist, as Politico has described it.
We have no insider knowledge of the vetting process, but the parallels between Kaine and Obama – both of whom are Harvard-educated attorneys with Kansas roots and a civil rights orientation – help explain their unusual chemistry. But those similarities could also prove a liability for the Democratic ticket.
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map
MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.Like Obama and his wife, both Kaine and his wife, Anne Holton, a lawyer and former judge, graduated from Harvard Law School. Holton and Michelle Obama also attended Princeton, although at different times.
That background no doubt attests to both couples’ smarts, but at a time when so many Americans are wary of intellectual achievers whom they see as elitists, the notion of four Harvard-educated lawyers in the White House may not play well in some quarters. (Perhaps that’s why The New Republic has posted a video of Kaine riffing on a harmonica with a blue-grass band as evidence he might cut it with regular folks.)
Kaine, 50, an early Obama supporter, also shares Obama’s preoccupation with civil rights. After graduating from Harvard, Kaine had a law practice specializing in representing people who had been denied housing opportunities because of race or disability. He also taught legal ethics for six years at the University of Richmond Law School.
Like the presumptive Democratic nominee, he boasts of a bipartisan orientation, an assertion that owes less to his record in the Virginia statehouse than the fact that his father-in-law, Linwood Holton, was the state’s Republican governor from 1970 to 1974.
Howard Fineman over at MSNBC points out that Holton, who is about to turn 85, remains a hero to liberal Democrats and African Americans in the Old Dominion.
Back in the 1970s, when public school busing and racial integration was creating a new faction of the GOP — one appealing to the fears and prejudices of working-class white southerners — Holton stood his ground.
As governor of Virginia, he sent his children, including his daughter, Anne, to public schools in Richmond to prove his point.The political friendship between Kaine and Obama is said to have begun shortly after Obama spoke before the Democratic convention in 2004. At Kaine’s invitation, Obama came to Virginia to campaign for him in 2005 as he ran for governor.
Kaine reciprocated last year by becoming the first prominent elected official outside of Illinois to endorse Obama for president.
It may be relevant too, as Fineman suggests, that the two men share a political consultant – the Benenson Strategy Group whose founder, Joel Benenson is advising Obama. The group’s principal consultant, Peter Brodnitz, who gained his reputation handling Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia, is advising Kaine.
Kaine does bring some things to a Democratic ticket that Obama lacks. A practicing Catholic who spent close to a year working as a missionary in Honduras, Kaine would presumably appeal to swing Catholic voters, even though political scientist Larry Sabato points out, “he is pro-choice in effect while projecting a pro-life image and accepting of the death penalty despite personal opposition to it.”
Kaine is also fluent in Spanish and would presumably appeal to growing numbers of Latino voters.
Most critically, if he could help Obama win Virginia, which has voted Republican in 13 of the last 14 presidential contests, that could give Obama a decisive Electoral College advantage, according to Sabato.
On the negative side, however, those skeptical of Obama’s readiness to lead the nation may feel the same way about Kaine. With scant background in military and foreign policy, in particular, Kaine would be unlikely to reassure those who have trouble seeing Obama as commander in chief.
Although Kaine has more executive experience than Obama as a sitting governor and a former mayor of Richmond, many pundits there say his record of achievement as a state leader is mixed, in part because he has been unable to move much through a Republican-controlled state legislature.
Finally, as someone relatively new to the Big Leagues, he could hammer away at the Democrats’ change theme – but that would cut both ways since he has little national name recognition.
Which is to say, he might be “Obama squared “– a smart, charismatic and a formidable campaigner, but without enough of a track record to make his promise of change seem credible.
Here’s a taste of Kaine on the harmonica:
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