WASHINGTON – The Obama family left the buzzing halls of the White House for the quieter seaside escape of Martha’s Vineyard this week. But make no mistake; this vacation home is no quaint summer cottage.
Since Barack Obama has been in office, he has spent two weeks every summer (except the summer of 2012 before reelection) on the Vineyard, an island just south of Cape Cod, Mass. This year, the family is occupying an estate in the island town of Chilmark, called Blue Heron Farm, complete with tennis courts, a dressage riding ring, pool and hot tub, and a par-3 golf course. The property rents for $50,000 a week.
But the Vineyard’s mellow vibes and renowned clam chowder aren’t the only things pulling the Obamas back to its quintessential New England beaches. The preppy summertime haven is steeped in political history and most of its vacationers lean left.
“Certainly in recent years the island has been pretty reliably Democratic,” said Martha’s Vineyard Museum librarian A. Bowdoin Van Riper. “So it’s a relatively congenial place for a Democratic president.”
In the 2012 election, Obama received nearly 73 percent of votes from Martha’s Vineyard’s residents. Pollsters estimated that the summer influx of wealthy beachgoers from Boston and New York did nothing to lessen the island’s deep blue hue. But where does that Democratic pride come from?
“Throughout the 20th Century, the Vineyard has been this kind of two-humped camel,” Van Riper said. “It has an enormous concentration of wealth and power and political influence, but it also has a substantial working class community.”
The Vineyard’s affluent Democratic donors first welcomed President Bill Clinton and then-first lady Hillary Clinton in 1993 and have mingled with them almost every year since. President Clinton was often spotted shaking the hands of fellow patrons at local vineyard ice cream shops.
Before the Clintons, the Kennedy family left its footprint on the clay-stained dunes of the island, although the family compound is in Hyannisport on Cape Cod. In addition to the property the family owned on the Vineyard, the tiny neighboring island of Chappaquiddick is where the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s hopes of a presidential campaign ended.
Late one evening in 1969 after a party the Massachusetts senator drove his car off a bridge, which resulted in the death of passenger and colleague Mary Jo Kopechne.
However, Vineyarders seem to concentrate more on the Kennedy family’s understated classic taste and less on Ted Kennedy’s island infamy.
The liberal locale also has a significant African American presence. The town of Oak Bluffs is a historic resort community that has been frequented by America’s black privileged class since the late nineteenth century. Blacks tend to be more Democratic than Republican. According to Exit Poll data, 93 percent of registered black voters chose Obama in the 2012 election, while only 6 percent picked Republican Mitt Romney.
Republican presidents seem to prefer life on the ranch. In lieu of seersucker and fishing rods, the George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan families opted for cowboy hats and horses. They spent their vacations on their properties in Texas and California, respectively.
The Obamas, who don’t have a family estate, will spend the next two weeks on Martha’s Vineyard. The president told reporters he would return to Washington on Aug. 17 for two days of business meetings. But until then, he and his family will try to get some reprieve from the chaos of the capital.
“The island has the reputation of a place you can go to get away from the everyday hustle and bustle,” Van Riper said. “If you’re the leader of the free world, you might want that inaccessibility the Vineyard has.”