Obama Makes His Case in Mostly Friendly Territory

 

From three fund-raisers on Wednesday and Thursday morning in San Francisco to three more later Thursday here among the Hollywood set, Mr. Obama made the case for his achievements, acknowledged the setbacks, faced a few hecklers and raked in millions of dollars for the Democratic Party. Contributions ranged from $25 to the legal maximum of $35,800.

Especially in Hollywood, interest in Mr. Obama has waned little, people here say, despite pockets of frustration over matters including the war in Afghanistan, the failure to close the Guantánamo Bay prison and his resistance to endorsing same-sex marriage.

“What’s the alternative? There is none. Hollywood wants Obama re-elected, it’s as simple as that,” said Bill Carrick, a Democratic consultant in California. “East Coast reporters keep suggesting to me that Hollywood is unhappy with the president. Based on what? I see no evidence of that.”

Mr. Obama’s three events in Los Angeles included a fund-raising dinner and another event at Sony Pictures Studios and a dinner afterward at the restaurant Tavern. The two dinners were expected to draw a combined 100 people paying $35,800 each, while about 2,500 people paid at least $100 to attend the larger rally at the Sony back lot featuring the Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx, according to Democratic officials.

All money goes to the Obama Victory Fund; of the $35,800, $5,000 goes to Mr. Obama’s own campaign and the rest to the national party.?

A Sony representative said the company had rented the space to the Democratic National Committee. Organizers of the dinner included Jamie Lynton, wife of Michael Lynton, the chief executive of Sony Pictures Entertainment, and attendees included Amy Pascal, Sony’s co-chairwoman, and the philanthropist Eli Broad. The co-chairmen included Ken Solomon, chief executive of the Tennis Channel; John Emerson of Capital Group; and Andy Spahn, a political consultant and former DreamWorks executive.

Much as in the 1990s, when President Bill Clinton was a favorite of the entertainment crowd, the rivalry among its competitive players for proximity to the president remains intense. And Mr. Obama has come far less frequently than Mr. Clinton, making dinners with him all the hotter a commodity.

Two people familiar with the planning for the Sony events said it caused some consternation among those who had already been organizing the dinner at the Tavern, including two of the founders of DreamWorks, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, who were prominent in the 2008 Obama election effort.

Yet the high-priced 60-person dinner sold out quickly. Among other attendees were Steven Spielberg, another DreamWorks founder, and actors George Clooney Tom Hanks, wife Rita Wilson and Will Ferrell.

At a fund-raising dinner for about 200 in San Francisco on Wednesday, the luxury cars outside the home of Marc Benioff, chief executive of Salesforce.com, included a Jaguar with the license plate “MR44FAN.” Mr. Obama is the 44th president.

As he would do again at a breakfast fund-raiser the next morning in San Francisco at the St. Regis Hotel, Mr. Obama acknowledged that for many the high hopes he had excited in 2008 had not been fulfilled, or he had frustrated them by his compromises with Republicans.

But he made a case for his achievements — some of the largest spending “investments” ever in education, transportation, infrastructure and clean-energy industries; a health care law, even if it is not the single-payer, government-run system many liberals wanted; repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law; and the naming of two women to the Supreme Court, including the first Hispanic-American.

Later, at a larger and lower-priced fund-raiser at the Nob Hill Masonic Center, Mr. Obama recalled that he had warned supporters on election night in Chicago: “I said we may not get there in one year.? We may not even get there in one term.”

But when he continued by saying, “Our work is not finished,” an audience member yelled out “Gay marriage!”?When he said, “We didn’t get everything exactly the way we had planned,” someone yelled “Health care!” and another, “Single-payer!”

Mr. Obama took it in stride: “See there? Case in point, right? All right — see, I knew I’d open up this can of worms.”

But the more bizarre protest came at the St. Regis breakfast. Soon after Mr. Obama began speaking to about 150 people who had paid up to $35,800, a woman stood and led her table of 10 in a song. The chorus: “We paid our dues, where’s our change?”

They complained mainly of the detention of Pvt. Bradley Manning on suspicion of having leaked classified material to the WikiLeaks Web site. But they also sang, “We’ll vote for you in 2012. Yes, that’s true. Look at the Republicans — what else can we do?”

“That was a nice song,” Mr. Obama said. The lead singer and two others left and Mr. Obama continued speaking, once again conceding his setbacks but recounting his achievements. And the seven who remained stood with everyone else for an ovation when he finished.