Obama Visits Billionaires Row

House on billionaires row

Obama gestures

After Obama was inside, they made the millionaires line up as they let them in one-by-one. For some reason, there's something strangely gratifying about seeing millionaires forced to stand in line. They probably don't have to do that very often.

Another great photo essay on an American phenomenon, Barack Hussein Obama on a fund raising dinner in San Francisco. Many more fantastic pics at the Zombietime link. Enjoy.

FROM ZOMBIETIME.COM:

Obama Visits Billionaires Row
San Francisco, April 6, 2008

On April 6, 2008, Barack Obama visited the San Francisco region, zipping from event to event all day long, from one end of the Bay Area to the other.

What? you might ask. How did I miss that? If only I had known, I would have gone to see him.

Well, there's a reason you didn't know about it. Obama didn't want you to know about it. Because the events he was attending weren't for people like you.

They were for people with lots and lots of money, who use that money to gain access and influence with politicians -- especially politicians who might become president.

So although the San Francisco Bay Area is probably the most pro-Obama section of the entire country, with Obama signs and stickers visible everywhere you turn, when Obama himself actually visited his electoral home base, he ignored the hoi polloi -- all the little people who swoon over him -- and instead, he spent the entire day with the rich. According to local gossip columnist Leah Garchik:
In the Haight, stencils of Barack Obama's smiling face are decorating the sidewalk. But in real life, he is turning up in more lucrative venues: The candidate will be around here on April 6, at a series of events that includes three $2,300-a-head maximum-strength fundraisers: Sara and Sohaib Abbasi are throwing a luncheon in Atherton; he'll zip up to Nancy and Bob Farese's house in Kentfield in mid-afternoon; and proceed from there to Ann and Gordon Getty's in San Francisco.
(Let it be pointed out that Atherton and Kentfield are two of the cities with the highest-per-capita net worth in the entire United States.)

And not only were the non-affluent excluded from these events, even the media was disallowed -- as Garchik adds:
Your trusty party-animal-by-proxy has tried to infiltrate these events, but transparency seems to be fogged up. No media eyes allowed on the collection kettles; when the gifts are big, the press is barred.
I wasn't about to let that stop me. When I hear the words "No media allowed," that's when I reach for my camera.

And I set my sights on the grand prize: The fundraiser at the home of Ann and Gordon Getty, on what has come to be called "Billionaires Row," reputed to be the wealthiest block in the world.
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