The February issue of Vogue features an interview with incoming White House social secretary Desirée Rogers, and the Chicago businesswoman seems to have a good idea of how the Obama years will play out—socially speaking.
William Norwich reports that Rogers has already met with previous social secretaries from the Kennedy, Clinton, and second Bush administrations, and mentions she'll be looking to the Kennedy years, in particular, for inspiration. "Yes, we are about change and about finding a new way," Rogers told Norwich, "but 'new' doesn't mean that we walk away from history."
The Obama White House intends to focus on inclusion, with an emphasis on culture, poetry readings, concerts, and science lectures. There's also a great chance that Rogers will oversee lotteries to become a guest at White House events—she ran the Illinois Lottery for much of the early '90s—and orchestrate live streaming video of events for Americans to watch online.
Answering the question of how all of these plans might be affected by the economy, Rogers maintains that she'll get the job done by "using the assets already there... We have to be balanced. People think that being 'social' means hosting a lavish party, but that's not true. We all thrive on social interaction, and we must continue to."
