President Obama speaking at the House of Blues on Decatur Street on Wednesday afternoon, after an earlier fundraiser at a home on Audubon Boulevard. (image via WWLTV.com)
President Obama made a campaign stop in Uptown New Orleans on Wednesday afternoon, though it was somewhat more discrete than the large crowds he drew at a House of Blues fundraiser or his speech to the National Urban League conference at the Convention Center.
Prior to those events, Obama held a private $25,000-per person “campaign roundtable” at the Audubon Boulevard home of Lori and Bobby Savoie, president of the firm Geocent. (The Savoies are not the most ardent of Obama supporters, however; they have also contributed to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign, as well as Republicans Bobby Jindal and David Vitter, according to CNN.) The event reportedly drew about 20 people, but for many Uptown residents the visit manifested itself in street closures manned by local, state and federal agents and tangled detours along South Claiborne, Audubon, Broadway and Hickory.
Despite the rain, some New Orleanians took the roadsides to welcome the President, wrote Central Carrollton resident Larry Lorenz on a neighborhood website.
“He did not draw Mardi Gras truck-parade crowds, but a few friendly neighbors waved as the presidential limousine passed from Carrollton Avenue to Broadway,” Lorenz wrote. “He was something of a shadowy figure behind his thick tinted bullet- and bomb-proofed window, but he could be seen returning the greetings.”
[Update: Lorenz has written a fuller account of seeing the President’s motorcade on his personal blog.]
Afterward, Obama went on to a public fundraiser at the House of Blues — where he joked about blowing off the campaign stops to “get something to eat” — and then addressed 4,000 attendees at the National Urban League conference, hosted by former Mayor Marc Morial. See reports on those appearances by reporters Scott Satchfield and Tania Dall of our partners at WWL.
