Saturday Morning Open Thread: Joy Is A Good Feeling
by Anne Laurie | August 3, 2024 8:05 am

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GENTLEMANIA
Doug Emhoff and Chasten Buttigieg Just Shattered Cher’s Record for Fire Island Fundraising

Chasten told a sold-out Fire Island crowd how Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, and the husbands formed a close bond.

BY ANNA PEELE
AUGUST 2, 2024


Photos from Getty Images

On a sticky August Friday afternoon on Fire Island, New York City’s second most illustrious summer weekend destination, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and First Secretary of Transportation Gentleman Chasten Buttigieg held the most successful fundraiser in the island’s history, according to event co-chair and former 18-year treasurer of the Democratic National Committee Andrew Tobias. He said the fundraiser brought in $321,000, beating the $200,000 haul for an event Cher showed up to in 2016.

The inherent contrasts of the 2024 campaign — prosecutor vs. criminal, future vs. past, and, as the event’s host Marius Meland pointed out, woman vs. man — were embodied by the environs. The event took place in the Pines, a historically gay neighborhood that served as the setting for the 2022 romantic comedy Fire Island. En route to the event, secret service agents appeared to waylay hunks in bikini cut swimsuits to smuggle Emhoff on and off the island. (“We can’t walk on the boardwalk because someone’s getting on a boat?” said an annoyed man holding what looked to be a to-go cocktail.) Hanging over the entrance of Meland and his partner Eng Kian Ooi’s home was a large painting of an unusually sexy Narcissus. The house, designed by Studio 54 architecture firm Bromley Caldari, was purchased with a fortune made from the sale of Law360 to LexisNexis and from Meland’s current work in AI. Buttigieg and Emhoff were dressed formally — “Business casual on a Friday on Fire Island…thanks, team!” said Emhoff with affectionate sarcasm — while the well tanned and polo-shirted crowd cheered. A campaign staffer bridged the divide in an increasingly damp linen suit worn over a tank top.

Attendees paid between $250 and $10,000 to be there, according to marketing executive Barry Lowenthal. (The floor for a photo with Emhoff and Buttigieg: $5,000, Lowenthal told VF.) Though President Biden was referred to with gratitude — “Look what he just did!” someone said of the hostage exchange that freed Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich — everyone Vanity Fair spoke with expressed great enthusiasm over the change in ticket. Nowhere was this vibe shift more evident than in attendance: the event had initially been conceived as an event to raise money for President Biden, but after Vice President Kamala Harris declared her candidacy, the event was rejiggered—and it sold out.

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