Obama makes stop in Pgh.
WASHINGTON — Drawing attention to his economic policies and courting a key Democratic constituency, President Barack Obama is embarking on a two-stop day trip to highlight technological developments and to raise money for the Democratic Party from a newly energized gay community.
Obama today was traveling to Pittsburgh, where he will visit a workshop designed to give entrepreneurs, inventors and creators the space and the tools to design and build their prototypes.
He then will fly to New York City for a gala lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee. The fundraiser comes a day after the White House announced plans for Obama to sign an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating against employees on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
The trip combines important election-year tasks for Obama — maintaining a focus on the economy, raising money and nurturing an important Democratic voting and donor bloc.
The Pittsburgh visit to TechShop, a chain of community-based workshops, is part of Obama’s renewed emphasis on how to create jobs and improve wages. During the next several weeks Obama is looking to cut through the current foreign policy flare-ups with an emphasis on working families, manufacturing, wages and the need for greater spending on infrastructure projects.
That attention could be crucial in an election year when some Democrats in vulnerable races are not embracing other top Obama issues like climate change and health care.
The Washington Post reported today that Obama will also announce a proposal to declare nearly 782,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean off-limits to fishing, oil drilling and other commercial activities. The Post story cited unnamed senior White House officials.
In New York, Obama will attend three big-dollar fundraisers, with the gay community gala as the centerpiece. Obama will also headline his first super PAC fundraiser as the main draw for the Senate Majority PAC, a Democratic group that takes unlimited donations. Obama’s appearance will cap what has been a gradual acceptance of the big-money groups he once decried.
Obama will conclude the night at a fundraising dinner at the home of the Vogue editor Anna Wintour.
The president is likely to get a rousing reception at the gala in response to his decision to act on workplace discrimination, even if it is limited to the federal contracting workforce.
Obama lacks authority to extend that protection to all Americans, but the order being drafted by the White House would affect about 14 million workers whose employers or states currently do not prohibit workplace discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals.
