Like Ken Mehlman, the former Republican National Committee chair and the Bush-Cheney campaign manager in '04, Hoover has since been sought out by gay groups. He has been a key fund-raiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights, the group that has organized and litigated the Proposition 8 challenge, and she's an advisory board member for both that organization and GOProud. Unlike Mehlman, however, Hoover is straight. And she hasn't tempered her on-record anger when it comes to the gay marriage-as-political-football issue. "The people Republicans represent are not haters--that's what was so unbelievable about '04," Hoover says. "You had this social conservative strategy in terms of trying to get the vote out in states with [marriage amendments]. But the top issues for conservatives were national security and the economy, not gay marriage."