Some of first lady Michelle Obama’s heralded fashion prowess has rubbed off on her husband — or perhaps President Barack Obama is just interested in the fashion world’s fundraising ability.
The president is reportedly considering nominating one of his top fundraisers, Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, to be his next ambassador to the U.K. or France, according to a report from Bloomberg News.
In September, New York Magazine reported that Wintour’s $40,000-per-plate celebrity fundraisers made her the Obama campaign’s fourth biggest bundler, raising more than $2.68 million by that point in time from the rich and famous.
Her idea for the Obama campaign to sell designer campaign paraphernalia with the slogan “Runway to Win” also raised more than $40 million, according to the New York Post.
Louis Susman, the current Ambassador of the United States to the Court of St James’s, was a 2008 Obama bundler. He’s not expected to stay for Obama’s second term, nor are Pittsburgh Steelers football team owner Dan Rooney, the U.S. Ambassador to Ireland, or former Jim Henson Co. CEO Charles Rivkin, the envoy to France, Bloomberg reports.
The financial news service notes that presidents tapping donors for these diplomatic roles is nothing new. In Obama’s first term he nominated 59 ambassadors, 40 of whom were fundraising bundlers.
“When he ran for election in 2008, on several occasions, Obama declared his intent to appoint more career people, and that has not actually happened,” Susan Johnson, the president of the American Foreign Service Association, told Bloomberg. “Our expectations were lifted, only to be dashed by reality.”
Though the opportunity may present itself, Wintour, the inspiration for the antagonist in “The Devil Wears Prada,” is said not to be interested in the position.
“She’s very happy with her current job,” Vogue spokeswoman Megan Salt told Bloomberg.
Ironically, though Wintour was one of the top money drivers during the 2012 election cycle, she claimed after the election that she was very pleased money was not what won the presidency.
“It’s no secret that I worked very hard for the president this campaign,” she said of Obama’s 2012 victory, according to the Post.
“And it’s very rewarding to see that money can’t buy the White House, which is what the Republicans were trying to do with all those hundreds of millions of dollars that the super PACs were raising,” she added. “I’m so grateful that the president will have a second term.”
Bloomberg adds that that Matthew Barzun, the finance chairman of Obama’s presidential campaign, is also eying the U.K. post.
Watch Wintour’s Obama campaign video:
