Ken Mehlman
Kenneth B. Mehlman (born
1967 in
Baltimore, Maryland) is the chair of the
Republican National Committee. He served as the
campaign manager for
George W. Bush's
2004 re-election campaign.
Mehlman received his undergraduate degree in 1988 from
Franklin and Marshall College in
Lancaster, Pennsylvania and his
J.D. from
Harvard Law School in 1991. He practiced
environmental law at
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in Washington (1991â€"1996) and assisted campaigns in
Massachusetts (
William Weld's
1990 gubernatorial campaign),
Ohio,
Virginia,
Texas, and
Georgia as well as the
1992 and
1996 Presidential campaigns.
Mehlman was Congresswoman
Kay Granger's (
TX-12) Chief of Staff and Congressman
Lamar S. Smith's (
TX-21) Legislative Director. Mehlman served
George W. Bush as the field director for his 2000 campaign and later became the
White House Director of Political Affairs. He managed the Bush presidential re-election campaign in 2004. In
January 2005, the American Association of Political Consultants gave Mehlman the "Campaign Manager of the Year" award for his management of the Bush/Cheney presidential ticket.
[American Association of Political Consultants gives top awards to Bush-Cheney campaign manager Ken Mehlman and campaign team for new Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko - American Association of Political Consultants, January 21, 2005]A Democratic analysis of phone records introduced at the 2005 criminal trial of James Tobin, the Northeast political director for the RNC in 2002, show that he made 115 outgoing calls - mostly to the same number in the White House office of political affairs - between September 17 and November 22, 2002. At the time, the office of political affairs was headed by Mehlman. Two dozen of the calls were made from 9:28 a.m. the day before the election through 2:17 a.m. the night after the voting, a three-day period during which the criminal phone jamming operation was finalized, carried out, and then abruptly shut down.
Virtually all the calls to the White House went to the same phone number. In April 2006, Mehlman issued a statement on the matter, noting that his deputy for the Northeast states routinely discussed election business with RNC officials, and categorically stated that "none of my conversations nor the conversations of my staff, involved discussion of the phone-jamming incident."
[ Granite Status: Meridian to guide Coburn race for governor - John Distaso, UnionLeader.com, March 23, 2006] [Statement From RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman - GOP website, April 11, 2006]Mehlman was
President Bush's choice to replace
Ed Gillespie as the chair of the
Republican National Committee and was elected to the post on
January 19,
2005.
Mehlman addressed the
NAACP a full year before
George W. Bush addressed the civil rights organization. In his address to the
NAACP on
July 14,
2005 in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Mehlman apologized for the
Republican Party's failure to reach out to the black community in the aftermath of 1964's
Civil Rights Act, stating, "Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization ... I am here as Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong"
[GOP ignored black vote, chairman says - John Rundy, Boston Globe, July 15, 2005] [GOP presses black voters for 'a chance' - Joseph Williams, Boston Globe, August 5, 2005]. In a CNN interview a couple of days after the speech, he reluctantly mentioned the "
Southern Strategy" by name.
[Transcript - CNN, July 17, 2005]Although Mehlman's speech seemed to suggest a new approach towards the African-American community, most have considered the approach to be unsuccessful, with several polls indicating that Republicans have not improved in terms of African-American approval. A
Washington Post poll shows that
George W. Bush's approval rating among African Americans fell to 2% at one point, and a
report card issued by the
NAACP gave "F"s to a majority of Congressional Republicans, although the report card covered a wide variety of issues, with multiple ones not dealing mainly with African Americans.
Mehlman plays a key role, along with
Karl Rove, in executing the Republican Party's long-term plan for electoral dominance. This is discussed at length in
Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger's
One Party Country.
[Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger, One Party Country: The Republican Plan for Dominance in the 21st Century (Wiley, 2006).]An article in the
April 2006 issue of
Vanity Fair detailed alleged email exchanges between Mehlman and
Jack Abramoff. The article claimed there was a very close personal relationship between Mehlman and Abramoff, and said Mehlman had been a
Shabbat dinner guest at Abramoff's home. The article also said that Mehlman acted on behalf of Abramoff to prevent Allen Stayman, a
Clinton appointee in the
State Department, from keeping his job.
Mehlman, through a spokesperson, denied recalling the email exchanges "because he was often contacted by political supporters with suggestions and ideas."
Mehlman is , a fact he noted in response to
Howard Dean's suggestion that the
Republican Party was "pretty much a white Christian party."
[Dean's Identity Crisis - New York Sun, June 9, 2005] He lives in
Washington, D.C. and has never been married.
In response to public questions about his
sexual orientation, Mehlman initially declined to respond, indicating that "[You] have asked a question people shouldn't have to answer."(
see references) In
May 2006, however, he denied being gay, adding that the rumors have impacted his dating life
[Cooper's own sad story - New York Daily News, May 2, 2006].
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RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman - Official biography
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Ken Mehlman's campaign contributions
