Look out, Martha’s Vineyard: The media circus may be coming to town again.
Rumors are swirling that President Obama will spend two weeks on the island in August, according to the Boston Globe.
The Obamas would be following in the footsteps of the Clintons, whose presidential vacations brought the Vineyard years of publicity during the 1990s. Celebrities are old hat on an island that has hosted the Kennedys, Princess Diana and half of Hollywood over the years. Not everybody loves seeing the quiet island morph into an A-list destination every summer: Martha’s Vineyard is more crowded and more expensive than ever, and plenty of islanders worry that the glitzy and the super-wealthy threaten to muscle out the working-class and the free-spirited. On the other hand, all the attention is good for business, and in this down economy a dose of Obama star power could only help the bottom line.
One person who will be thrilled if Barack and Michelle Obama visit is Charles J. Ogletree, an author, lawyer and professor who mentored them when they were students at Harvard Law School. Ogletree, who has hosted Obama at his summer home in Oak Bluffs, tells the Globe that the president’s vacation would be typical: He would probably read, play golf and spend time with his family. But I’m betting the professor will try to get the president out on the ocean to haul in a few fish as well. A committed angler, Ogletree regularly fishes for striped bass and bluefish on the Tomahawk Too with Capt. Buddy Vanderhoop (star of Chapter 10: I Fish, Therefore I Lie). Last year, Ogletree ended up atop the leaderboard on the first day of the Vineyard’s legendary derby with a 28.68-pound striped bass.
Buddy has fished with the likes of Taj Mahal and Keith Richards, and he once guided Spike Lee to a 57-pound striper (the director could barely lift the thing). But if he puts Obama on a big one, it would count as a fish story of a lifetime.
UPDATE: The Vineyard Gazette has fun with the rumors.
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