Another leaked John Podesta email shows how self-conscious the Clinton campaign was about hiring a certain percentages of women and minority candidates to fill top positions, even leaving a position open for an unnamed “Hispanic Woman” and assuming another position would go to a “white woman.” The February 2015 email sent by Clinton confidante Cheryl Mills is headlined “Here is Robby’s List of the top 10 or so positions,” a reference to campaign manager Robby Mook.

Exec Chair – Podesta

States Director – Marshall

Political Director – Hispanic Woman

Finance Director – Dennis Cheng

National spokesperson – Karen Finney

Manager – Mook

Digital and Technology Director – Teddy

Data/Analytics – Elan

Communications/Research – Jen

COO – TBD

Policy – Jake

Strategist – Joel Beneson [thought Jim and Mandy also count]

 

*12 positions*:

4 POC (2 Black; 1 Asian; 1 Hispanic)

4 Women (assuming COO is a white woman)

6 White Men

 

33% diverse

33% women

50% white men

The email mentions 12 positions in all, two of which are set aside for a generic “Hispanic woman” and “white woman.” The Associated Press notes there was concern at the time about appearances rooted in data from the Clinton Foundation:

The campaign officials’ focus on diversity came in the same month that Clinton’s advisers circulated data collected from her family’s foundation that found only three of the foundation’s 11 highest paid employees were women — and a Democratic consultant expressed concern about the political fallout from the gender discrepancy.

Emails released last week about the Clinton Foundation highlighted a large disparity in the median salaries of the top-paid men and woman working for the organization.

According to the emails, the median salary of the highest paid men at the foundation was $346,106, while the median salary of the highest paid women was $185,386 — roughly a $160,000 difference. The numbers came from the foundation’s 990 tax forms for 2013, according to the emails.

So the suggestion here is that the campaign was worried about appearances at the Foundation and set out to make sure there weren’t similar issues with the campaign. Thus diversity was reduced to having the white, male campaign manager set aside slots based upon a desired percentage of women and people of color (“POC”) among the staff. The campaign did eventually hire Amanda Renteria, who is Hispanic, to fill the Political Director position.