Romney Mines the Hamptons for Campaign Cash

Gordon M. Grant for The New York Times


EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. — A woman in a blue chiffon dress poked her head out of a black Range Rover here on Sunday afternoon and yelled to an aide to Mitt Romney. “Is there a V.I.P. entrance? We are V.I.P.”

No such entrance existed. The line of cars waiting to enter a Romney fund-raiser on a waterfront estate here had reached 30 deep, a gridlocked testament to the Republican candidate’s financial might on a weekend when he is expected to haul in close to $4 million in the Hamptons.

The aides to the governor apologized for the wait: each donor had to be checked off a guest list, setting off a major backup. “We are doing our best,” a staff member with a clipboard said.

Mr. Romney arrived around noon for the first of three major fund-raisers on Sunday afternoon, his motorcade of Chevrolet Suburbans bypassing a line of gleaming Bentleys, Porsches and Mercedes-Benzes waiting to deposit guests paying up to $25,000 a head to hear him speak.

But what was billed as a day of elegant campaign events at the homes of the ultrarich turned out to be an afternoon of curious and clashing tableaus: protesters with their bandannas and Occupy Wall Street-inspired chants (“We got sold out, banks got bailed out!”) standing amid multimillion-dollar mansions, where live bands played “Margaritaville” and donors dined on prosciutto-wrapped melon balls.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/09/us/politics/romney-mines-the-hamptons-for-campaign-cash.html