Excerpt: "When Romney held a big, fancy fundraiser at David Koch's estate in the Hamptons, it was not only attended by wealthy donors - activists and protesters showed up, too. And the irony in this LA Times piece is so thick we couldn't have invented it."

Protesters marched down the beach in New York's Hamptons to demonstrate against the power of deep-pocketed donors over the political process. (photo: Garrett Haake/NBC)

Activists Crash Romney's Koch-Sponsored Hamptons Fundraiser

By Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, AlterNet

10 July 12

ast month, President Obama raised a comparatively paltry $71 million campaign dollars to Romney's Goliath $106 million, and the reason is clear: the Republican candidate is backed by a coalition of Wall Street-humping super-PACs and shady figures like the Koch brothers who want to leverage their dough to take away the rights of average American people. So yesterday, when Romney held a big, fancy fundraiser at David Koch's estate in the Hamptons, it was not only attended by wealthy donors-activists and protesters showed up, too. And the irony in this LA Times piece is so thick we couldn't have invented it:

A money manager in a green Jeep said it was time for Romney to "up his game and be more reactive." So far, said the donor (who would not give his name because he said it would hurt his business), Romney has had a "very timid offense."

A New York City donor a few cars back, who also would not give her name, said Romney needed to do a better job connecting. "I don't think the common person is getting it," she said from the passenger seat of a Range Rover stamped with East Hampton beach permits. "Nobody understands why Obama is hurting them."

Haha! These are the people who would have Romney run the country: rich socialites and business people driving Range Rovers who frequent the natty, exclusive world of the Hamptons and yet think that Obama is "hurting" the "common person." These are the people who are so incredibly out of touch, and who are themselves running companies that axe jobs, like Romney's friend Meg Whitman-who cut 27,000 jobs from HP last month. But of course, the irony was not lost on Twitter: here's MoveOn's Storify about the fundraiser, which features an awesome collection of photographs. Oh, and the Range Rover lady? Here's the rest of her quote:

"We've got the message," she added. "But my college kid, the baby sitters, the nails ladies - everybody who's got the right to vote - they don't understand what's going on. I just think if you're lower income - one, you're not as educated, two, they don't understand how it works, they don't understand how the systems work, they don't understand the impact."

We're willing to bet that the "nails ladies," the babysitters, and probably her college kid, too, find her to be the uneducated one, not to mention totally condescending. These are the people who want Romney to preside over us-the people who think we're dumb for wanting economic equity. Read the rest of the article here.

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+91 # tswhiskers 2012-07-10 07:42

I have a Master's degree and I understand quite well how it works. The wealthy 2% in the country have been gaining wealth for the past 20-30 years at the expense of the lower and middle classes. And they have done it not by creating jobs but by putting companies out of business and sending those jobs overseas so they can pay foreign workers pennies. The infuriating thing is that Conservatives and some of the public either fail to see or truly don't care to see the economic and political harm caused by decades of far right policies exercised her in the U.S. Republicans are destroying voting rights in state after state for single shortsighted purpose of keeping Reps. in office and Dems out. The state of Michigan is running many of its cities as economic dictatorships. Reps. no longer care for the good of the country; they are doing everything they can to obstruct Obama's policies so they can say, as Romney has, that Obama has not done what he promised to do in 2008. The Reps. are still allowing Grover Norquist to hold them hostage to his no new taxes pledge; as a result our economic problems continue to grow. If the Reps. gain the Presidency and more of Congress, I fear that we will become an economic backwater like Mexico with the top 2% living like princes and the rest of us scrabbling in the dirt. Either that or trickle-down economics means the rich will sprinkle fairy dust on the rest of us and we'll live happily ever after.

+32 # pernsey 2012-07-10 08:12

tswhiskers that was a great post, you said everything I want to say, but my sarcasm always gets in the way. Again great post!!

+58 # mdhome 2012-07-10 08:45

That pledge to Grover is unconstitutiona l, signing that pledge makes it impossible for them to obey the pledge they take when becoming members of congress.

+19 # julileegal 2012-07-10 10:34

This is definitely true and if it isn't, should be unconstitutiona l. The people who signed the pledge should be knocked out of Congress post haste. I can't understand how the Repugs are getting away with walking all over us.

+4 # seakat 2012-07-10 14:50

The oath of office is nearly meaningless.

The current oath was enacted in 1884:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

0 # Neferterri 2012-07-15 19:55

Because they are being allowed to.

+4 # ghostperson 2012-07-11 21:08

I was taken out of pre-nursing in high school and put in votech because my dad was a welder and my mom a beauty operator which crippled on objective tests due to a math deficit. I had no margin for error on any narrative portion of major tests. Nonetheless, I managed to get a B.A. with a triple major, a M.S. with a double major and a Juris Doctor at a top 10 law school passing one of the two hardest bar exams in the country, the first time I took it. 6 1/2 of my 9 years of higher education were on scholarship--ac ademic. So like tswhiskers, I too understand the absurdity of the right's mindset. I lived it from the bottom up. I want for others, what was there for me: affordable education (by no means low cost for my family even with me working) and a hook and ladder to climb to high paying employment using my intelligence and willingness to work. Call it affirmative action. Call it whatever you want. This country can create tax payers or Pablo Escobars. I vote for the former. Affirmative action is the same stuff Clarence Thomas used before he burned the latter behind him. The same stuff that C student George W. Bush used to get into an ivy league school for which he was not qualified. At least Clarence Coke Can Thomas and I were academically qualified to go where we went, as recognized by academic awards and success. We just don't call it affirmative action when the son of a rich man gets a boost up for reasons other than merit. Right wing hypocrisy makes my blood boil.

0 # Neferterri 2012-07-15 19:55

You said it best. Good job.

-25 # wrodwell 2012-07-10 07:58

The "exclusive world of the Hamptons" is not the sole preserve of Republican supporters. Democrats and Hollywood progressives such as Steven Spielberg among others, also have summer homes in the Hamptons. My guess is some of them also drive Range Rovers.

+40 # Feral Dogz 2012-07-10 08:47

Quoting wrodwell:

The "exclusive world of the Hamptons" is not the sole preserve of Republican supporters. Democrats and Hollywood progressives such as Steven Spielberg among others, also have summer homes in the Hamptons. My guess is some of them also drive Range Rovers.

And your point being...?

Some of them also support women's rights, higher taxes on the wealthy, govt. regulation of banking and corporate rapacity, forward thinking on energy policy, infra-structure and campaign finance reform. I could go on.

+16 # Regina 2012-07-10 12:14

You can distinguish the progressives by their lack of disdain for their nails ladies.

+3 # Texas Aggie 2012-07-11 08:38

The fact that you focus on owning Range Rovers and having a summer home in the Hamptons while ignoring the condescension and the ignorance of the people quoted indicates one or the other of two things. One is that you are being deliberately obfuscatory or that you yourself are as clueless as these people mentioned in the article and have no idea of what real people are suffering. And by "real" I mean just that. I don't refer to the painted and created people who are fabrications of their wealth.

+34 # Feral Dogz 2012-07-10 08:36

How many of these high rolling donors contributed to both McCain's and Obama's campaign in '08, hedging their bets on the oncoming economic disaster they knew they had created?

It seems apparent that some of these 1%ers are losing confidence in the power of their wealth to control public opinion. The need for anonymity demonstrates their fear.

The knowledge that they are vastly outnumbered by those they have exploited has driven them further to the right and its policies of repression and intimidation.

Now the question is whether independant voters, who one might hope are capable of critical thinking will go to the polls and choose a future with opportunities for all Americans, or one that will simply defend the haves from the have nots.

This election is the tipping point. If the GOP takes the White House and the Senate, and continues to gain ground in state legislatures, there will be no democracy in America's future.

+26 # angelfish 2012-07-10 08:37

Poor Sods. It is THEY who "don't get it"! They need to come BACK to reality and start acting like Americans, not the Hoi Polloi elitist ME First-ers" that they think they are! There are MORE of US than there are of them, WHEN will they realize that, EVENTUALLY, when the "great un-washed" rise up and realize their own true worth and POWER, the elitists will be Toast? Never, EVER vote ReTHUGlican! The People, UNITED, will NEVER be defeated!

+7 # LisaH 2012-07-10 08:49

Or, RePUGnican...

+8 # Regina 2012-07-10 12:22

You're out of touch with language, angelfish. "Hoi polloi" is Greek for "The many" -- in other words, the general public. Not the elite!! The thugs who sneer down their noses at their "nails ladies" are elite, but that's also a linguistic problem. "Elite" comes from the same root as "elect" -- but elite means "chosen" by an upper crust, not in a democratic process. Meanings of words change over time and usage, but hoi polloi still stands for the people.

+4 # angelfish 2012-07-10 16:06

SoQuoting Regina:

You're out of touch with language, angelfish. "Hoi polloi" is Greek for "The many" -- in other words, the general public. Not the elite!! The thugs who sneer down their noses at their "nails ladies" are elite, but that's also a linguistic problem. "Elite" comes from the same root as "elect" -- but elite means "chosen" by an upper crust, not in a democratic process. Meanings of words change over time and usage, but hoi polloi still stands for the people.

Sorry Regina, I never took Greek in school. Forgive my error. I hope everyone got the essence of what I was trying to say, even if I used incorrect terminology.

-34 # lnason@umassd.edu 2012-07-10 08:45

One wonders what a story about a $40,000 a plate fundraiser for Obama might look like. Interviews with clueless Hollywood denizens and murky references to undisclosed financial dealings, I am sure. And if Republicans were inclined to be disruptive, they might also picket the event.

Picking on one candidate for doing exactly what the other candidate is doing seems a bit biased to me.

Lee Nason
New Bedford, Massachusetts

+6 # Texas Aggie 2012-07-11 08:47

You would have to look very far and search very diligently for a donor at an Obama fund raiser who is as clueless as these in the Hamptons. Don't forget that most of Hollywood got where they are on the basis of their own efforts coming up through the ranks while in the Hamptons there is an awful lot of inherited wealth and the people have no exposure whatsoever to what the "lower classes" have to do to survive. And as I am sure you realize, the "murky financial dealings" were done by people like Bob Diamond who sponsors a Romney fund raiser, not by some Hollywood star.

You are an example of the Rove syndrome where you look at your own behavior and attribute the most disreputable parts of it on your opponents.

And if you want disruptive, tell me about the Brooks Brother riots that contributed to closing down the vote in Florida and eventually gave us 9/11, Iraq, the present recession, the national debt, unprecedented police surveillance of innocent people, etc.

+3 # panhead49 2012-07-11 10:41

Quoting lnason@umassd.edu:

One wonders what a story about a $40,000 a plate fundraiser for Obama might look like. Interviews with clueless Hollywood denizens and murky references to undisclosed financial dealings, I am sure. And if Republicans were inclined to be disruptive, they might also picket the event.

Picking on one candidate for doing exactly what the other candidate is doing seems a bit biased to me.

Lee Nason
New Bedford, Massachusetts

Oh please, give me a break - that crowd would never actually get out and protest. They'd just send their help out to do it for them. Protesting in the hot sun, on your feet for hours - that's what we peons (pee on?) are for. Or call up their bought and paid for local officials to rid the rabble from rousing on the lawn anywhere near their vicinity.

It all has a Resident Evil feel to it. With a touch of The Book Of Eli.

0 # LAellie33 2012-07-30 19:50

Turn the Fox dial down. It's starting to damage braincells.

+23 # Bill Clements 2012-07-10 10:34

What a rich little window (no pun intended) into the world of these super-wealthy Romney donors. The one that puts the icing on the cake is, of course, the last quote: "We've got the message...."

The presumption that if you're "low income," you're not only uneducated, but apparently not smart enough to understand how "the system" works. Really? I don't think it takes a genius to see how the lower and middle classes are being screwed by the system we have presently. Or fail to understand the concept of wealth inequality. They might not be able to give you the statistics,i.e. , the top 10% possess 80% of all financial assets and the bottom 90% hold only 20% of all financial wealth, but they nevertheless get the picture quite clearly.

The irony, of course, is that "the system" she is speaking of now has
Citizens United to add to the mix, which makes it clearer still for the "uneducated."

And the supreme irony is that it's people like her and Romney who don't grasp the bigger picture because they are so thoroughly out of touch as this quote makes evident. But "they" know what's going on, right?

And finally, I love that she throws her own college-going kid under the bus along with the baby sitters and the nail ladies..... all clueless and uneducated. Man, I would hate to have this woman as my mother.

+10 # julileegal 2012-07-10 10:40

You obviously do not understand what's going on. If the Supreme Court hadn't free rein to the 1%, we wouldn't be sweating the big fundraising problems. Therefore no reason for you to fret.

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