Martha’s Vineyard
THE paella has been ordered, the invitations have been sent out, and a large white tent has been reserved for the lawn. Next weekend, a few hundred guests, many who spend their summers on this dune-swept island off the coast of Cape Cod, will gather in Edgartown at the waterfront home of Frank Biondi, a former chief executive of Universal Studios and
Donations for the fund-raiser, which is also being coordinated by Jill Iscol and her husband, Ken, who was principal owner of Cellular One, have been set at $2,300 and $1,000. Helping with the event are Clinton friends like Mary Steenburgen and Ted Danson, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and the Washington power broker Vernon Jordan.
Meanwhile, about 10 miles from the Biondis’ home, on the northeast side of the island in Oak Bluffs, similar preparations are being made for a fund-raising party for Senator Barack Obama, to be held the following Tuesday at the home of Ron and Judy Davenport, founders of Pittsburgh-based Sheridan Broadcasting.
Seventy-five or so donors who will shell out $2,300 each are expected to have a 45-minute audience with Mr. Obama in the Davenports’ living room. He will also make an appearance outdoors, where about 200 people, donating $1,000 each, will mingle over cocktails in the Davenports’ backyard abutting Nantucket Sound.
Carol Craven, the owner of a gallery in Vineyard Haven, who is on the host committee for the Obama fund-raiser, acknowledged that some of her friends won’t be at the party. “An awful lot of my pals are Hillary people,” she said.
It’s turning out to be that kind of summer on Martha’s Vineyard, long a Democratic enclave — one in which a highly charged political season, with two prominent candidates with powerful personal stories to tell, is dividing old loyalties, testing longtime friendships and causing a few awkward moments at the island’s many dinner parties.
“It’s on the beach, in the stores, at the dinner table,” said Tamara Weiss, the owner of Midnight Farm, a sprawling, eclectic boutique in Vineyard Haven. (Though one of her partners in the store, Carly Simon, has been a prominent Clinton supporter and is expected to appear at another fund-raising event on the island for Mrs. Clinton, Ms. Weiss says she herself is still undecided about which candidate to back.)