Ambassadorial openings for open wallets
By Al Kamen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 18, 2011; 9:09 PM
Still depressed that you didn't get that cushy ambassadorship? Able and willing to donate and bundle ginormous amounts of money for President Obama's reelection and for the D's in 2012?
Then buck up! If history is any guide, there could be some fine ambassadorial openings starting toward the end of this year, and even more next year. These jobs are getting very, very expensive - the really plum ones are likely to go for upward of $1 million. So you'd best be preparing, getting your lists together.
Right now, though, pickin's are mighty slim. There are only 10 openings (in places you don't want to go to anyway, such as Bolivia, Burma, Belarus, Sudan, etc.), and foreign policy issues block many of them from being filled.
Only two of the open jobs are in the traditionally-for-sale category - one in lovely Barbados (which includes a group of West Indies isles with phenomenal beaches, scuba diving and such) and, as of just last week, one at the embassy in Luxembourg, where mega-donor Cynthia Stroum quit after less than a year on the job.
Career foreign service folks were concerned in the early months of the Obama administration about what appeared to be a deluge of political - vs. career diplomat- nominations to big embassies.
But the administration's share of political appointees to 187 ambassadorial posts came in at 30.05 percent, according to data collected by the American Foreign Service Association. That's under the average (30.47 percent) for the previous five presidents. (The quality of Obama's appointees is another matter.)
The Obama percentage of fat-cat ambassadors is likely to decline over time, generally because if he wins reelection, he won't be in fundraising mode, and because he has a huge pool of losing House and Senate members and governors who may need work.
Get those wallets out.
So long, farewell . . .
Speaking of ambassadorships, Stroum, a venture capitalist from Seattle, said in a statement last week that she had decided to return home from Luxembourg "to focus on my family and personal business."
She noted that she'd "traveled throughout the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg." (Not that hard to do, since it's the size of Rhode Island, with a population of half a million.)
She's being replaced temporarily by the deputy chief of mission, Arnold Campbell, a veteran career diplomat who arrived just a few weeks ago to take that job. We're told he's the third deputy in that post in the past year - which may be why Stroum had something of a reputation among the career folks of being hard to work with. On the other hand, she was said to be most unhappy with her posting.
(Note to donors: Luxembourg, a NATO ally and a very wealthy country, is less than a couple hours by train from Paris.)
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 18, 2011; 9:09 PM
Still depressed that you didn't get that cushy ambassadorship? Able and willing to donate and bundle ginormous amounts of money for President Obama's reelection and for the D's in 2012?
Then buck up! If history is any guide, there could be some fine ambassadorial openings starting toward the end of this year, and even more next year. These jobs are getting very, very expensive - the really plum ones are likely to go for upward of $1 million. So you'd best be preparing, getting your lists together.
Right now, though, pickin's are mighty slim. There are only 10 openings (in places you don't want to go to anyway, such as Bolivia, Burma, Belarus, Sudan, etc.), and foreign policy issues block many of them from being filled.
Only two of the open jobs are in the traditionally-for-sale category - one in lovely Barbados (which includes a group of West Indies isles with phenomenal beaches, scuba diving and such) and, as of just last week, one at the embassy in Luxembourg, where mega-donor Cynthia Stroum quit after less than a year on the job.
Career foreign service folks were concerned in the early months of the Obama administration about what appeared to be a deluge of political - vs. career diplomat- nominations to big embassies.
But the administration's share of political appointees to 187 ambassadorial posts came in at 30.05 percent, according to data collected by the American Foreign Service Association. That's under the average (30.47 percent) for the previous five presidents. (The quality of Obama's appointees is another matter.)
The Obama percentage of fat-cat ambassadors is likely to decline over time, generally because if he wins reelection, he won't be in fundraising mode, and because he has a huge pool of losing House and Senate members and governors who may need work.
Get those wallets out.
So long, farewell . . .
Speaking of ambassadorships, Stroum, a venture capitalist from Seattle, said in a statement last week that she had decided to return home from Luxembourg "to focus on my family and personal business."
She noted that she'd "traveled throughout the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg." (Not that hard to do, since it's the size of Rhode Island, with a population of half a million.)
She's being replaced temporarily by the deputy chief of mission, Arnold Campbell, a veteran career diplomat who arrived just a few weeks ago to take that job. We're told he's the third deputy in that post in the past year - which may be why Stroum had something of a reputation among the career folks of being hard to work with. On the other hand, she was said to be most unhappy with her posting.
(Note to donors: Luxembourg, a NATO ally and a very wealthy country, is less than a couple hours by train from Paris.)
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 12:20 AM
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