Obama's Power Gays

Chad Griffin (pictured)
Los Angeles

Amount raised (range): $100,000–$200,000
Occupation: Political consultant/strategist
Other political campaigns donated to this year: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.)

Griffin is cofounder of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, launched in 2009 with the aim of overturning California’s Proposition 8 in court (Judge Vaughn Walker’s 2010 judgment striking down the ballot measure is currently on appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit). Just barely out of high school, Griffin worked in the Clinton administration’s West Wing under White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers. His business partner, Kristina Schake, was tapped as Mrs. Obama’s communications director earlier this year.

“Contrasting this speech from two years ago, the president showed exactly what he has accomplished,” Griffin told this magazine following Obama’s keynote address earlier this month at the Human Rights Campaign’s national dinner in Washington, D.C. “In 2009, he said, ‘I will repeal ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ I will sign hate crimes' — and today he had the opportunity to say that he has delivered.”
 

Sally Susman
New York

Amount raised (range): $500,000+
Occupation: Executive vice president of policy, external affairs, and communications at Pfizer Inc.
Other political campaigns donated to this year: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.)

In addition to being in a top position at one of the world’s pharmaceutical giants, Susman serves as a commissioner on the New York City Commission on Women's Issues and is a board member for the Parsons School of Design and the National Partnership for Women and Families.