San Francisco’s trendy diners gave a sunglasses-shedding President Barack Obama the celebrity’s welcome when he stopped in to dine Thursday night at Twenty Five Lusk emoting cheers as he poked his head in the room.
In five seconds of video, 27-year-old Alex Dwyer caught the show on video. He was there for happy hour with coworkers when Obama walked in and drew what he called a consensus opinion that “he’s got a lot of swag.” The San Francisco Chronicle posted the video with Dwyer’s account suggesting that the president likely took his dinner in one of the private dining areas.
On this West Coast tour, Obama scheduled a Friday speech at the seventh annual Global Leadership Summit, then on to fundraise for Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee in Seattle and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) in Medina. The Inslee event is calculated to have raised a minimum $750,000 based on News Tribune reporting that about 3,000 people attended the $250-500 a head campaign event.
Obama’s embarrassment over the United Kingdom’s vote to exit the European Union despite his threats as he lobbied U.K. voters to remain and the popularity of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump came out in his Seattle speech. Prolific golfer Obama tried to slam Trump for attending an event at one of his golf resorts in Scotland as news of Brexit spread. Obama contrasted the appearance against his event in California with Facebook mogul Mark Zuckerberg who has faced accusations from former employees of deliberate actions to suppress conservative news. As of August 2015 Obama had logged an estimated excess of 1,100 hours of golf among 247 rounds.
Concur Technologies CEO Steve Singh held the separate DCCC private event at his home with the hefty $10,000 to $66,800 per couple price tag according to the Tribune report.
Tech company worker Dwyer recounted for the Chronicle the security pat-down he faced coming down the alley where the trendy San Francisco restaurant sits. Security wouldn’t say who the mandatory special event security was for, but when the car pulled arrived the mystery was solved.
Hollywood fundraisers brought Obama to California for big money donors in April. Blockbuster movie actor Tobey Maguire hosted an April 8 fundraiser with the president that relegated reporters to the star’s garage. Obama hit up donors on a February fundraising tour in California complete with a stop in golf destination Palm Springs.
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