President Comes to Newport

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President Obama waves to neighbors as he arrives at the Stack home in Corona del Mar for a fundraising brunch yesterday morning. Photo by Roger Bloom
President Obama greets Bryce Hanck, 9, on his arrival in the Shorecliff neighborhood.Photo by Alexa Hanck

President Barack Obama, accompanied by tight security and drawing supporters and protesters into the streets, visited Newport Beach yesterday morning for a fundraising brunch at a Corona del Mar home.

The event at the home of Jeff and Nancy Stack on Evening Canyon Road was attended by about 160 donors who paid $2,500 to $38,500 apiece, and it raised some $1.2 million for Obama’s reelection effort.

The Democratic president’s foray into heavily Republican CdM did not go unnotied by local partisans, scores of whom took to the sidewalks around Coast Highway and Seaward Road with anti-Obama signs and slogans. Also present were as many or more supporters of the president, who drew the neighborhood’s ire when they started chanting at about 6:30 a.m.

There also were plenty of folks who just wanted a glimpse of president as his motorcade made its way to and from the Shorecliff neighborhood. Most were disappointed, as President Obama was not visible behind the tinted glass of his presidential SUV as it entered and left the neighborhood.

Anti-Obama protesters were on hand on Coast Highway to greet the president. Photo by Lawrence Sherwin

But one group of neighbors was definitely not disappointed as the president, alighting from his vehicle in the Stack garage, walked out to the street, waved to neighbors across the way, and strolled next door to shake hands with a group of kids and their parents before returning to the Stacks’ and disappearing inside.

He was at the home for about an hour and a half, then departed for John Wayne Airport, where the Marine One helicopter waited to transport him to LAX and Air Force One.

Dickson Shafer and Carla Pritchett assisted in this report.

Also present in force were supporters of the president. Photo by Sara Hall

 

Nancy Johnson rode her horse, Sinatra, to protest high gas prices that she blamed on President Obama. Photo by Jim Collins
A group of medical-marijuana supporters protested the Obama Administrations crackdown on pot dispensaries. Photo by Jim Collins

 

Spectators crane to get a photo of the presidential motorcade on Coast Highway. Photo by Sara Hall

 

Attorney and big Democratic donor Wylie Aitken takes a picture of his wife, Bette, with Rep. Loretta Sanchez before the event. Photo by Roger Bloom

 

While President Obama was inside the Stack home, members of his entourage took the opportunity to spiff up the vehicles in the motorcade. Photo by Roger Bloom
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3 COMMENTS

  1. Love the Democratic support displayed in CDM! As a former CDMHS alum I am proud to see people who are intelligent living in OC. Go progressives go! Show the sheltered morons of OC that they aren’t the center of the earth.
    And John and Buttercupnb, seriously look outside the bubble. The ones who are filthy are sitting on Wallstreet, and maybe you two. Though Repub “Christians” they do not know what they do–hypocrites.