On Michelle Obama’s Guest List: Alma Rangel

[City Lights]

January 30, 2008, 1:33 pm
On Michelle Obama’s Guest List: Alma Rangel
By SEWELL CHAN

Updated, 2:30 p.m. | Michelle Obama spoke this afternoon at a fund-raising lunch on the Upper East Side for her husband’s presidential campaign, and one of the more prominent people present was Alma Rangel, the wife of Representative Charles B. Rangel, according to a person familiar with the guest list for the event. Mr. Rangel has been a leading supporter of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, so his wife’s attendance at a fund-raiser for Senator Barack Obama, Mrs. Clinton’s chief rival, seems noteworthy.

Other guests at the Obama fund-raiser included Victoria Kennedy, the wife of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the powerful Massachusetts Democrat who endorsed Mr. Obama on Monday; John W. Rogers Jr., a Chicago mutual fund executive who has been one of Mr. Obama’s top fund-raisers; and Patricia Blanchet, a Haitian-born artist and the widow of the “60 Minutes” correspondent Ed Bradley, who died in 2006.

Guests were asked to contribute up to $2,300 for Mr. Obama’s campaign. The fund-raiser was held at the home of Peter and Patricia Findlay, who run the Findlay Gallery, which specializes in 19th and 20th century European art.

Mr. Rangel, elected in 1970, is the dean of Harlem politics and the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. He has urged other local politicians to support Mrs. Clinton, the junior senator from New York, no matter what happens. To be sure, spouses often support different candidates. But this is not the first time members of the Rangel family have expressed fondness for Mr. Obama.

more... http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/on-michelle-obamas-guest-list-alma-rangel/