Teslas and Maseratis lined the street as Kamala Harris greeted guests sipping drinks from plastic cups with her name on them and eating cinnamon sugar donuts from Dreesen’s at a fund-raiser hosted by movie executive Jamie Patricof and his wife Kelly as the summer of Democratic fund-raisers rolled on in East Hampton.
The senator and former California prosecutor assured donors “I believe in capitalism” during a jam-packed weekend of pitching her plan to save the middle class. Harris is looking to raise enough money to keep her campaign fueled through the next debates in September and beyond. [...]
Harris again tried to clarify her stance on health care, a topic that tripped her up in the early Democratic debates. “I have not been comfortable with Bernie’s plan,” she said of Sanders’ Medicare for All proposal, and explained how a Harris administration would leave room for private insurance. — www.bloomberg.com/...
Sen. Harris is of course, a co-sponsor of Medicare For All (S. 1129), the current version of the M4A bills that John Conyers sponsored for several years. Both the House and Senate versions do not permit private insurance that covers any services covered by M4A. Since M4A cover all medically necessary procedures and medication/devices (including vision and dental) the opportunity for private insurance is small, and largely limited to covering visitors to the US and cosmetic procedures.
Sen. Harris attended several fundraisers in the Hamptons and Martha’s Vineyard over the weekend. Next weekend, she’ll be in Martha’s Vineyard again, at the home of director Spike Lee. Cory Booker was also in the Hamptons, attending a fundraiser at Jon Bon Jovi’s home where tickets ranged from $500 to $5,000.
Also over the weekend, the chairman of Beacon Capital Partners and the managing partner of D.C. law firm Wiley Rein LLP hosted high-dollar fundraisers for Joe Biden in Cape Cod. Bloomberg reports that Biden has also been to Aspen and Sun Valley, Idaho to attend similar events. All this occurs as his campaign begins to worry about the “gaffes” Biden keeps making. Biden will be in the Hamptons next weekend.
Sen. Harris and Beto O’Rourke also overlapped with Biden in Aspen.
Pete Buttigieg will do the rounds of the Hamptons circuit on Labor Day, he’s scheduled to be at fundraisers hosted by the MD of a Venture Capital firm and the producers of the musical Hamilton.
The leading progressive candidates in the Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have thus far avoided high-dollar fundraisers and the optics of hobnobbing with the Hamptons, Cape Cod, Aspen, Martha’s Vineyard set.
— @subirgrewal