ARIZONA: John McCain Hires Gay Man As Senate Campaign Manager

You may recall that during the 2008 presidential campaign, Mike Rogers and Michelangelo Signorile outed John McCain's Senate chief of staff Mark Buse, seen here in a photo provided to me at that time by a reader. Yesterday McCain named Buse as his new Senate campaign manager.

Mark Buse is McCain's new campaign manager. Buse is a veteran McCain aide who got his start in the 1980s as an intern in McCain's House office. More recently, he was McCain's Senate chief of staff. Buse replaces Shiree Verdone, who recently departed as part of a staff shake-up. Grant Woods, a former Arizona attorney general and another longtime McCain ally, has officially joined the campaign as a senior adviser.

Yesterday McCain was interviewed about DADT by the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, where he again stated his opposition to the immediate repeal of DADT, saying:

"The people that I talk to and know, Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion, have both come out strongly against the repeal, and certainly even more strongly against a process that would preemptively address an issue which, could, could, I emphasize could – we haven’t done the study – could adversely affect the morale and battle effectiveness of the United States military, the by far and head and shoulders above and better than any other in the world today."

And now we have a gay man running the campaign of a politician who has opposed federal LGBT rights at every turn, admittedly with a softer voice than most, couching most of his objections in murky language about "states rights." McCain voted YES on DOMA, NO on hates crimes protections, and NO on ENDA. He's stated opposition to gay adoption and he supported Prop 8. And let's not forget his loud endorsement of Arizona's racist immigration law.

Once again, the assault on the LGBT community is being aided and abetted by one of our own. Today that person's name is Mark Buse.