Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Conn., will attend a private fundraiser for the Obama campaign in Rhode Island Thursday evening at the Alpine Country Club in Cranston. Entry will go for $1,000 per head, though donors are encouraged to contribute more to the campaign.
Additionally, the Rhode Island for Obama headquarters hosted its grand opening to a crowd of over 600 last Friday. Democrats Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Rep. Patrick Kennedy and Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts '78 attended the event at 321 South Main St., said Ray Sullivan, state director for the Obama presidential campaign.
"So many people RSVP'd and told us they were coming, we had to move the event from the office to the green in front of the river," Sullivan told The Herald.
The Obama headquarters, which shares office space with other democratic state leaders, houses three full-time employees, about 20 interns and hundreds of volunteers, many of whom are Brown students, Sullivan said.
During the primary season the campaign's office was temporarily located on Westminster Street. Though the new office was already functional before the kick-off event Friday, it has added over 50 telephone lines, said Deputy Field Officer for the campaign Max Chaiken '09, also president of Brown Students for Barack Obama and a Herald opinions columnist.
Sullivan said the focus of the campaign will have a "twofold" approach going forward. "Our first responsibility is to turn out a big win in Rhode Island," he said, adding that campaign staffers were also "working extremely hard to support our sister state, New Hampshire."
"This weekend is a nationwide 'Students for Obama' push. We send folks into target battleground states," Sullivan said. "We are working with all (Rhode Island) area schools to recruit folks to put boots on the ground."
