The Barack Obama
campaign announced Wednesday that David Noble, former
executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats and
current director of public policy and government
affairs at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force,
has been appointed as director of the LGBT vote for
the campaign. Noble will be stepping down from his position
at NGLTF and officially starting with the campaign on
June 21.
As the campaign
switches gears to the general election, deputy campaign
manager Steve Hildebrand said, "We have moved
aggressively to set up our national LGBT vote
operation and to staff it with the best people we can
possibly get." Hildebrand, who is gay, called Noble a
"well-seasoned" political operative.
"He is
experienced at many levels, he is a passionate advocate for
the LGBT community across the country, and he will be
an important voice for Barack Obama in this critical
election," Hildebrand said during a 20-minute
conference call with reporters. "We know there is a
tremendous difference between the positions held by
John McCain as the Republican nominee and Barack Obama
as the Democratic nominee, and Dave will be the voice
and the organizer behind making sure that voters all across
the country know the difference between the records
and the positions of these two candidates for the
presidency."
Acknowledging
that he had a lot of work do with just under five months
between now and the general election, Noble said he was
"thrilled" to join the Obama team and
had "really been proud to watch [Obama] speak
about LGBT issues on the stump, not just to LGBT audiences
but to everyone as he's been
campaigning."
Noble, who has a
history of coalition building among gay activists, said
the fact that the campaign reached out to him was just
one sign of how serious they are about making sure
that LGBT people not only have the information they
need to make an informed decision come November but also
have ways to get involved. "No matter how they
are organized now at their grassroots level,
they're going to have access to the campaign,"
said Noble.
Asked whether
Noble would be focusing his LGBT outreach efforts more on
red states or blue states, Hildebrand noted that just eight
weeks ago the campaign had launched a 50-state voter
registration drive.
"Dave will
be helping design those programs to be specifically reaching
out to gay voters and asking them to increase their
participation in politics, whether that means getting
them registered to vote or ensuring that they do vote
in November, whether they're voting for Barack Obama
-- which would obviously be our hope -- or John McCain
or one of the other third-party candidates,"
said Hildebrand. "The bottom line is, within
Barack's heart he believes that our democracy will be
stronger if more people participate in politics and
voting." (Kerry Eleveld, The Advocate)
