The president came to town

... and the people massed outside his $7500 a plate fundraising luncheon.


The polluting Tar Sands pipeline, health care, and the endless wars dominated the signage.


Protests at presidential fundraisers aren't just for dirty hippies anymore.

In a powerful display of profound disappointment with President Obama, some of the Democratic Party's biggest donors gathered Tuesday - not inside his tony San Francisco fundraiser at the W Hotel, but outside on the sidewalks carrying signs in protest of his policies.

"I don't even know what he stands for," said Susie Tompkins Buell, a co-founder of the Esprit clothing company and one of the most generous Democratic Party donors in the nation - instrumental in backing such powerhouse progressive organizations as the Democracy Alliance and Media Matters.

... Her goal: to urge Obama to stop the Keystone XL pipeline, a proposed 1,700-mile underground conduit linking the tar-sand fields in Alberta, Canada, to Texas refineries. Environmentalists say the pipeline would result in untold environmental damage. "I think this is a huge issue about our future, about the planet, not just America," she said. "And he needs to be a leader ... to have the awareness of it. To fight for it."

... "I'm not writing a check to the president until he does something to stop the Keystone pipeline," said Anna Hawken McKay, wife of Rob McKay - a wealthy philanthropist whose father founded the Taco Bell restaurant empire. As she stood on the sidewalk with other protesters, McKay vowed to be part of a protest of 5,000 Americans who will circle the White House on Nov. 6, a year to the day from the 2012 election.

... "If he says yes (to Keystone), I won't give him money," said Michael Kieschnick, president and co-founder of CREDO Mobile and Working Assets, which has donated $60 million to progressive causes, as he stood outside the W Hotel. ...

San Francisco Chronicle, October 25, 2011

I wonder if anyone is listening. Somehow I doubt it.