Report: Petraeus Mistress Previously Approached for NC Senate Run

In the latest bizarre twist in the mushrooming David Petreaus sex scandal, the former CIA director’s mistress Paula Broadwell was approached earlier this year by “Republican moneymen’’ about a run for a Senate seat in North Carolina, Time magazine reported Thursday.

Time’s Barton Gellman says that Broadwell, who was Petraeus’ biographer as well as his secret lover, made the startling claim as she had drinks with six acquaintances at a conference of the Aspen Institute in Colorado last July, Business Insider reports.

Broadwell told them “she had been arguing with her mentor about the direction of her career,’’ Gellman writes.

“Republican moneymen, she said, had approached her about a Senate run in North Carolina. She was tempted. Petraeus, she said in an irritated tone, rejected the idea out of hand.

“What was her position, he asked, on abortion? Climate change? Gun control? Gay marriage? Tax cuts? Social Security vouchers? Her answers, he told her, would not fit either party, and she should not sell herself out.’’
In Petraeus' mind, Gellman writes, her participation in politics “would be an understandable red flag, as his affair with Broadwell was going on at the time.’’

If she had chosen to run, Broadwell would most likely have taken on Democrat Kay Hagen, who is up for reelection in 2014.

Time also reports that Broadwell had gone on Facebook to ask if anybody could put her in touch with Lance Armstrong.

She “wanted to give her lover … a bike ride with Armstrong for his 60th birthday,’’ Gelman says.

Broadwell ended up going on a run with Armstrong , but her birthday-present idea for Petraeus apparently went nowhere.