Stars queue to meet Obama in Martha’s Vineyard

Barack Obama's bid to have a relaxing family vacation at the upmarket resort island of Martha's Vineyard got off to a not-so-low-key start soon after the First Family touched down at the Vineyard Haven airport, closed off for the presidential visit, on Sunday afternoon.
 
Residents of Martha's Vineyard, one of America's most exclusive and glamorous resorts, where both the Clintons and the Kennedys spent their summers, are usually nonchalant about the A-list vacationers who frequent the island.

But yesterday both holiday-makers and locals - 75 per cent of whom voted for Obama - lined the roads from the airport to the Obamas' 28-acre private estate, in a bid to get a glimpse of Barack and Michelle Obama with their daughters Sasha and Malia, and puppy Bo. Families sat on top of their vehicles to take photos, while others waved welcome signs such as 'Aloha Obama Family' and 'Hope, Obama!'. 

The island is also filling up with more high-profile well-wishers, keen to spend time with the President. Filmmaker Spike Lee, who has a home on the island, Beyonce and Jay-Z, Pele and Oprah Winfrey are all believed to have arrived in Martha's Vineyard or are on their way.

Ordinary residents, meanwhile, have set up their own network, texting and phoning each other, to work out where the Obamas might show up. "It's a monumental event to be on the same island as him," said one local, retired telecommunications executive Leonard Stephens. "There are even people taking up golf for the first time. They did the same for the opportunity of meeting Bill Clinton."

Yesterday Obama's deputy press secretary Bill Burton stressed that the President wanted a "normal family vacation" on the island. Burton told the dozens of visiting reporters: "He wants you to relax and have a good time. Take some walks on the beaches." The sandal-clad spokesman added: "Nobody is looking to make news."
 
Meanwhile rumours that another former First Family, the Clintons, were in town for the marriage of their 29-year-old daughter Chelsea to the Goldman Sachs investment banker Marc Mezvinsky, 31, appear to have been false.

Island locals had claimed that the pair would marry at the home of Cheers star Ted Danson and his actress wife Mary Steenburgen on Saturday. The Clintons had been spotted on the island earlier in the week, but reportedly jetted off to Bermuda on Thursday. ·