Three of President Barack Obama’s top reelection campaign fundraisers are next in line to hold major European diplomatic posts, reports the Washington Post.
Obama named John Emerson, the co-chair for the campaign’s Southern California finance team, as the next U.S. ambassador to Germany. HBO executive James Costos, who raised more than $500,000 for Obama, was named the ambassador to Spain. The director of Obama’s campaign finance operations, Rufus Gifford, was slated to serve as the ambassador to Denmark.
The long-expected nominations, announced by the White House late Friday afternoon, are the continuation of a quadrennial tradition after campaigns, as presidents reward their major fundraisers and donors with plum diplomatic posts. […]
The organization, which represents more than 30,000 active and retired Foreign Service employees, has called on Obama to curtail the practice.
"The appointment of non-career individuals, however accomplished in their own field, to lead America’s important diplomatic missions abroad should be exceptional and circumscribed, not the routine practice it has become over the last three decades," the labor union said in a recent statement on its Web site. "Now is the time to end the spoils system and the de facto ‘three-year rental’ of ambassadorships."