AKA William

Politics’s Ben Smith:

Former DNC Chairman Howard Dean, one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent gay rights advocates, is dropping out of tomorrow’s embattled LGBT fundraiser with Joe Biden in Washington, D.C.

A Dean spokeswoman, Karen Finney, stressed that Dean’s move was a scheduling conflict due to a “family commitment.”

Recall that Dean was quick to call the DOMA brief a “huge mistake.”

He is, by far, the biggest of the biggies to drop out of the fundraiser. And is the reference to “family” an old-school shoutout to us LGBTs?

Very related, out gay CO Rep. Jared Polis says, “I Will Attend the DNC Fundraiser