Jesse Cornett Hosting $1,000-a-Head Reception for President Obama

WWeek:

<img src="http://www.wweek.com/portland/imgs/media.images/9303/cornett.t2.jpg"/>

As first reported Tuesday by <span>WW</span>, <span>President Barack Obama</span> will visit Portland on July 24. Details of the campaign event are becoming clearer—and more expensive.

The event will be a <span>$1,000-a-head fundraising reception at the Oregon Convention Center.</span> The time hasn't been announced, but guests have been asked to RSVP to an unlikely host.

It's <span>Jesse Cornett</span>, the Blue Oregon blog co-founder who, as a City Council candidate in 2010, received $150,000 in public money to challenge Dan Saltzman—and finished third. Since then, Cornett has opened and closed a bar, The Guild Public House. 

Cornett tells <span>WW</span> he's on the Obama host committee because he asked<span> Terry Bean</span>, the Portland gay-rights activist and influential Presidential fundraiser.

"I reached out to Terry," Cornett says. "He's a friend in political circles."

Cornett says it's a change from his public-financing advocacy. "It's a different market, that's for sure," he says. "I'm just trying to pitch in and help."

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