At 28, Dave Noble has got his finger on the political pulse. As the executive director of National Stonewall Democrats (NSD), Noble is at the helm of the nation’s leading organization for GLBT Democrats, sporting 90 chapters across the country (the San Diego Democratic Club being among them). Noble began his work as a grassroots organizer in his home state of Rhode Island, rapidly branching out to rack up an impressive resume. He has served as executive director of the Young Democrats of America in Washington, D.C., managed youth outreach for Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign, worked as a consultant for the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, managed Myrth York’s campaign for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Rhode Island, and served on Commissioner Jim Roth’s campaign in Oklahoma.

Noble will be in San Diego, this Saturday night, April 17, for a reception benefiting NSD and the San Diego Democratic Club (for a web link to information about the event, visit the online version of this interview at www.gaylesbiantimes.com). Noble spoke with the Gay & Lesbian Times recently about this crucial election year, reaching out to young voters and recruiting new Democrats.

Dave Noble: She impressed a lot of our activists on the ground when she was campaigning for her dad. When he left the primary race I called her up and asked her how we could work together. She expressed a lot of interest in continuing to work with grassroots folk. She really likes getting out and meeting with organizations and people on the ground in the states and not just doing work from D.C., so we came up with the idea for really serving as our number one volunteer, if you will.

DN: Actually, it’s happening in about an hour, so you’re the first reporter to find that out.

DN: It was amazing and unprecedented for our movement and our country to have that many candidates, not just supporting our community, but actively recruiting the support of our community. … That was another reason why it didn’t make sense for us as a national organization to choose one, because so many of them had such strong records and were taking really strong positions.

DN: Actually, I think among young gay voters, we recognize what’s on the line right now. We don’t have time for revolution to change the way American government operates from the ground up. There are attacks that our government is making against us right now with George Bush in power.

One of the things that we’ve launched just this year is the Stonewall Student Network, which is a coalition of college students all across the country. It’s run by students who tell us here in D.C. what they need to be able to share their stories most effectively with their peers. Young people in our community are really some of the best advocates for Democratic candidates in this election cycle. The country might not be ready yet for a 65-year-old Stonewall leader to go and talk to his or her peers about the reasons this election is personally important to him or her as a gay or lesbian, but if a 22-year-old goes and talks to his or her peers about why George Bush’s attacks hurt us personally, we can really swing some votes. For our community, this election isn’t about the hypothetical, this is about real rights. This is about real discrimination that’s happening in our government, in our military, in our tax code and about a real opportunity to change that by getting rid of George Bush this November.

DN: Absolutely. She’s been very well received on college campuses, and she’s very well received with our chapter [members] of any age. She brings a fresh perspective. … She brings a real down to earth quality to her arguments and really connects well with grassroots activists. We couldn’t be more excited to have her on board.

DN: Goosebumps. I’ve known Gordon for many years. I’m from Rhode Island … and I’ve known his partner for many years as well. He had not planned on speaking at that rally and it was a surprise to all of us when he showed up and certainly a surprise to all of us when he started to speak. He started by talking about why, as a product of an interracial marriage, he understood these issues from that perspective … and we were sort of like, ‘Oh, he’s not going to come out.’ Then, when he brought it around again and said that he had a personal story of his own to share, the place erupted, for eight minutes, in just sustained applause, people running out of the crowd and hugging him, fellow legislators who were at the rally standing with him and hugging him, the media coming from all parts of the statehouse. It was electric, it was exciting and I think it really helps to change the debate in Rhode Island. Now Rhode Islanders have elected an openly gay man to be mayor of their capital city [David Cicilline] and they’ve got an openly gay man as Democratic leader in their house of representatives. When it comes to statewide legislation, you now have legislators who, if they’re going to vote against marriage equality legislation or vote for the legislation that would ban recognition of our relationships, are voting against the rights of the man they elected to lead them. I think it really gives pause to folks who may not have understood the personal implications of these bills.

DN: I don’t know Mary Cheney. … Everyone in our community has had their own personal story and we can’t put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. The situation with Mary Cheney working on her dad’s campaign, more than making me upset with Mary Cheney, makes me that much more disgusted with Dick Cheney — his hypocrisy in supporting the President’s amendment that would ban any potential recognition for his daughter’s relationships any time in the future. That he would use her to continue to move forward [his campaign] makes me that much more disgusted with Dick Cheney. … The fact that Dick Cheney is someone who would even put his own family on the line to get elected just really goes to show the character of the administration. George Bush and Dick Cheney are people that we can vote out of office and we need to keep our energies focused on them.

DN: If Mary Cheney wants to have a relationship with us, we’d love to sit down and talk with her. … She’s working for the Bush/Cheney campaign, so I think she’s made her intentions clear as to what she believes is important in this election cycle and who she will support. Would I love for her to be more vocal about disagreeing with her parents? Absolutely.

One of the things that endeared Chrissy Gephardt to much of the community was that she said right out that she disagreed with her dad on the fact that he wasn’t yet supportive of full marriage equality. And I think that by disagreeing with him and still talking about how she wanted to educate him, she helped move him along and didn’t say, ‘It’s okay, dad,’ but instead said, ‘You know, I know that your heart’s in the right place, but we need to keep fighting for this.’

DN: The most important vote that someone can make when they get elected to Congress is that vote to decide who sets the agenda for the next two years. That vote for speaker of the house or that vote for majority leader of the Senate really is more important than even individual votes on legislation important to us down the line. So you can be a Republican who believes in whatever other Republican principals you might say are important to you besides LGBT issues, but I think it’s important to remember that if you’re making your voting decisions based on LGBT equality, that even Republicans that may vote with us on pieces of legislation, still vote to put [Republican Majority Leader] Tom DeLay in power. They still vote to put [House Speaker] Dennis Hastert in power, still vote to put Bill Frist in power, still vote to support George Bush’s budgets that take out any sort of education about safe sex for our students in schools. The list goes on and on. So, until the Republican Party is actually a party that represents, and fights for equality, I think if you care about LGBT issues, you need to be putting Democrats in charge.