Opinion: Obama’s day in the sun

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Before his much-anticipated and highly exclusive fundraiser today at Oprah Winfrey’s estate in Montecito, Barack Obama mingled with the masses --- or, as The Times’ Tina Daunt notes, what passes for the masses in a particularly well-heeled stretch of Southern California.

Here’s Daunt’s initial dispatch:

‘There was a decidedly more populist tone to Obama’s first appearance of the day than would mark the A-list event hosted by Oprah. The crowd that began arriving about 10:30 a.m. at Santa Barbara City College for an address by the Democratic presidential hopeful about an hour later offered a cross-section of the hip beachside community. Overwhelmingly white, it ranged from fashionably turned out surfers to high-end bohemians. It also featured kids from the local middle school who were video-taping and live-blogging the event for the school’s website.

‘By the time Obama arrived from an overnight stay in San Francisco, the crowd had grown to around 5,000 under one of those perfectly blue Santa Barbara skies. The temperature was 75 degrees and the ocean glinted under the sun, providing the kind of backdrop money can’t buy --- unless, of course, you can afford property in Santa Barbara.

‘Obama surveyed the scene and quipped, ‘I can tell you, city colleges in Chicago don’t look like this. I wouldn’t get any work done here.’

‘Then, surveying his audience, he added, ‘I didn’t know there were any hippies left.’

‘That got a big laugh, as did his rejoiner: ‘That’s cool.’

‘From there, Obama moved into his standard stump speech. He decried the war in Iraq, attacked President Bush’s domestic policies and called for an increase in the national minimum wage. He earned his biggest bursts of applause denouncing the Darfur genocide and the administration’s detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

‘The speech complete, Obama was whisked south to Montecito for a private lunch at the gated, beachside home of human rights activist Nancy Koppelman. There, the crush around the driveway included white-shirted campaign aides and surfers (the latter were bound for the adjacent steps that lead down to the ocean).’

Here’s Daunt’s complete story on the website and in Sunday’s print editions on the gathering at Oprah’s 42-acre spread.

The fete was expected to generate about $3 million for Obama’s campaign. And, as the Chicago Tribune’s Christi Parsons wrote about today, it may be just the start of the talk-show diva’s efforts on behalf of her favorite candidate.

It also appears that entertainers on the East Coast don’t intend to be upstaged by Hollywood types when it comes to contributing to Obama’s coffers. A New York Times blog item details a Broadway bash planned for him later this month.

-- Don Frederick