Last week proved anew just how convincingly California has become the place where politicians go to rich people's homes to talk about the lives of less-fortunate people they rarely meet.
President Obama crossed into Southern California airspace on Thursday and promptly took part in two events with donors, one at the home of producer Chuck Lorre and the second hosted by entertainer Tyler Perry. Later he had dinner with Hollywood moguls Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg.
"Just dinner with friends," White House spokesman Eric Schultz said.
On Friday, after an interview for a comedian's podcast in Highland Park, Obama spoke in San Francisco at the annual meeting of the nation's mayors, then hit fundraisers on Nob Hill and at the Golden Gate Bridge-view home of Tom Steyer, the hedge-fund billionaire who spent $74 million to become the nation's most generous individual political donor in 2014.