Photograph by Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images
Security personnel guard a canal that runs along the area where President Barack Obama's vacation compound is located in Hawaii.
President Barack Obama is ever eager to draw contrasts with Republican Mitt Romney.
That can be tricky when campaigning across South Florida, as the president is today, raising millions of dollars for his reelection campaign at the homes of some of the Gold Coast’s wealthier residents.
First stop today: the Palm Beach Gardens home of Hansel Tookes, a former Pratt & Whitney executive, in a gated community called Frenchman’s Reserve for a $10,000-per-plate luncheon.
“We love you, Mr. President,” read one of the posters held by grade-school children greeting Obama outside.
“Who’s got a pool?” Obama asked on this 80-degree Florida day. “I want to go to a pool.”
Several hands shot up, Bloomberg’s Margaret Talev reports from the scene of the fundraiser.
At that point, someone must have asked the president about his own Hawaiian vacation retreat, where he and his family have spent some Christmas holidays. Obama replied: “I just rent that house. I don’t actually own it.”
Unlike the resort home that Romney is renovating along the coast of La Jolla, California, the one with the car elevator.
Which may be a lot more like another home on Obama’s tour today: The residence of attorney Jeremy Alters for a $15,000-per-person fundraising dinner in Golden Beach, an enclave of mansions on the oceanfront in northeast Miami-Dade County where the average listing price for homes on sale there has run well above $2 million.
