Obama taps 3 more big donors for ambassadorships

2009-06-20 02:40:02 -

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama has named three more big fundraisers and contributors to his presidential campaign to ambassadorships in Sweden, Italy and Morocco.
Obama tapped career diplomats Friday for posts in the Solomon Islands, Croatia, Tajikistan, Georgia and Uganda.
Obama nominated Louisville, Kentucky, technology entrepreneur and business executive Matthew Barzun, who raised more than $500,000 for the campaign, to be the next U.S. ambassador to Sweden, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics.
Barzun, owner of the internet publisher Brickpath LLC and a prolific contributor to Democratic candidates, personally donated $4,600 to Obama's campaign and $2,300 to now Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's unsuccessful run, according to the center.
He also contributed $25,000 to Obama's inauguration fund. Barzun and his family contributed more than $290,000 to political campaigns and groups during the 2008 election cycle, it said.
Another major fundraiser _ Minneapolis lawyer Samuel Kaplan, who along with his wife, Sylvia, brought in between $100,000 and $200,000 for Obama's campaign _ was nominated to be ambassador to Morocco. Samuel Kaplan donated the maximum personal amount of $4,600 to Obama's campaign and another $1,000 to Clinton's, according to the center.
Obama named Ertharin Cousin, a Chicago lawyer and expert in food security who served as a consultant and senior adviser to his campaign, to be the next U.S. ambassador to the Rome-based U.N. Agencies for Food and Agriculture. Although not listed as an Obama fundraiser, Cousin personally contributed $4,600 to his campaign, according to the center.
These are the career diplomats nominated as ambassadors
_John R. Bass, head of the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Baghdad since last July, to Georgia
_James B. Foley, senior State Department coordinator for Iraqi Refugee matters since 2007, to Croatia
_Kenneth E. Gross Jr., career development officer in the State Department, to Tajikistan
_Jerry P. Lanier, foreign policy adviser for the U.S. Africa Command in Stuttgart, Germany, to Uganda
_Teddy B. Taylor, deputy assistant secretary of state for Human Resources; to Solomon Islands,Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea.