Vogue editor Anna Wintour has long been rumored to be angling for an ambassador job, and on Monday Bloomberg started up the speculation again, reporting the Obama administration is considering Wintour for a post in London or possibly Paris. But she’s got competition: Obama’s campaign finance chair Matthew Barzun, who has already served as ambassador to Sweden, is reportedly in the running for the U.K. job, while Marc Lasry, a managing partner at Avenue Capital Management, reportedly “covets” the French job. A Vogue spokesman says Wintour, who was one of Obama’s most high-profile fundraisers in the 2012 campaign, is “very happy with her current job.”
Louis Susman, an Obama fundraiser and former Citigroup executive, is the current ambassador to the Court of St. James. Charles Rivkin, a fundraiser and former head of the Jim Henson Company, is ambassador to France. Neither is expected to stay for a second term. Wintour, through a friend, has denied any interest in ambassador jobs in the past. That might be good enough for a fashion world denial, but in the realm of politics, deploying anonymous third-party proxies and saying you’re “happy in your current job” is basically code for “I’m waiting by the phone for the president to call.”
