For Obama, Still Lots of Love, and Cash, Out West

Gazing at an Alexander Calder mobile in the Seattle-area mansion of Jon Shirley, a former Microsoft executive and art collector, Barack Obama said he was eager to “roam around a bit and check stuff out.” But alone time wasn’t on the president’s itinerary that night. The millionaires who’d gathered at Shirley’s house for a Democratic fundraiser on Nov. 24 paid $16,200 apiece to see the leader of the free world up close.

The dinner was one of seven events the president squeezed into a three-day trip to Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles in late November. Obama chose those locations in part because they have a high concentration of rich people—the fundraisers netted at least $6.5 million, based on reported ticket prices and crowd counts—but also because they’re Obama-friendly in a way many places in the country no longer are. As he struggles to fix the healthcare website, explain his administration’s policy of spying on U.S. citizens, revive a listless economy, and come to terms with Republicans over the federal budget, the president’s approval rating has dropped below 40 percent. Yet in Hollywood and Silicon Valley, movie stars and tech executives still greet him with 2008 levels of adulation.