But they’re famous

For Hollywood’s part, the presidential campaign of 2004 will be remembered as a blockbuster effort that brought together a glittering all-star cast, a robust budget and an amazing soundtrack to produce

Sen. John F. Kerry’s bid for the White House rallied A-list movie stars, savvy moguls, brand-name rock heroes and street-smart rappers to its cause. But in the end it came down to the little people -- the voters -- and they didn’t seem particularly star-struck.

“We squandered record amounts of money,” said Dan Adler, board member of Rock the Vote, the outreach effort that uses music stars to rally the youth vote. “Smart and good people, not just from Hollywood, jumped in with great ideas and great resources. People went into battleground states. We squandered a unity of purpose. We have nothing to show for it.”

That tone was shared widely this week in Hollywood’s liberal activist circles, where the Kerry defeat was taken personally: The election season saw an increase in their activism that went far beyond writing checks.

It was made up of personal-touch moments. It was the previously nonpartisan Bruce Springsteen risking fan disaffection by sharing the podium with Kerry, and Danny DeVito ferrying voters to the polls in a minivan. It was Sean “P. Diddy” Combs rallying young voters in Harlem, and Larry David walking the curbs of West Palm Beach, Fla.

Did it help?

Politics and celebrity is a slippery equation. Even the stars themselves have observed that the heartland rankles at the mention of “Hollywood elite.”

On the morning after the election, voices as disparate as conservative columnist George Will and the cast of “The Howard Stern Show” mused that outspoken celebrities did more harm than good. Stern’s crew said Ashton Kutcher should not be playing statesman, while Will wrote that voters were “energized by resentment” at the outpouring of stars-as-pundits.

While there is no doubt that Hollywood’s and the music industry’s fundraising prowess gave Kerry’s campaign a significant boost, it’s difficult to quantify the effect of their endorsements.

No matter how well versed Ben Affleck is in tax reform issues, will his voice change votes? Affleck and others have acknowledged as much. Larry Gelbart, best known as the executive producer of the TV series “MASH,” wrote online critiques of the Bush administration but said he was painfully aware it was a cathartic exercise.

“I have no illusions,” he said of his Internet readers. “I know I was preaching to the choir.”

Proof that Democrats in Hollywood were being critiqued even as they tried to make a difference came in the form of a biting satire, the film “Team America,” that mocked many of the stars’ points of view.

Balancing that out were many observers who felt that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was a vital last-minute force for President Bush’s victory in Ohio and that Springsteen’s music and speeches while at Kerry’s side were factors in the Wisconsin race.

Still, producer Bruce Cohen, who won an Oscar for “American Beauty,” said many in the entertainment sector would question how they could have “worked harder, spent more time, given more money, flown farther to more swing states,” but he said the celebrity activism should not be dismissed as misguided or ill-received.

Cohen said he believed voters made a distinction between fancy, star-studded events in Hollywood that raised a lot of money for politicians and the grass-roots efforts that literally landed on their front porch.

“That’s different than you get a knock on your door in Cleveland and someone has flown here to talk to you,” he said. “They realized that’s a whole different level of commitment and responded to that.”

Ron Silver, a longtime Democrat who spoke at the Republican National Convention and described himself as one of the few pro-Bush entertainers on the cable talk-show circuit, said his outsider role allowed him to see Hollywood clearly.

“I learned a lot from traveling around the country. It energized me and made me realize how divorced celebrities, the media, academics are from the general population,” Silver said. “They see themselves as the representatives of the people, when nothing could be further from the truth. There’s a great heartland there for whom faith and moral values are important. Popular culture doesn’t reflect what half the country feels.”

Lynda Obst, producer of hit romantic comedies including “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” was one of many activists who had spent the election’s aftermath chewing on the approaches taken -- and on what the future would hold.

“I don’t think Hollywood could have done more without alienating the middle of the country,” Obst said. “We raised a significant amount of money. The counterculture knocked itself out.”

Filmmaker David O. Russell (“I Heart Huckabees”), who directed the politically charged film “Soldiers Pay,” said celebrity speeches and Hollywood politicking would need to become more “balanced and judicious” in order to be effective.

“When making a case, we have to approach it as a scientific, empirical thing -- so carefully considered that it gives people pause,” he said. “Still, as Ross Perot said, Republicans and Democrats are born and bred. How can I account for how the people in the red states think?”

With the fresh sting of the defeat, some of the presumed voter resentment against Hollywood was returned in kind.

Chad Griffin, a Hollywood-based public affairs consultant and political strategist, quipped: “A lot of the Hollywood people with whom I spoke were saying, ‘Thank God we live in the People’s Republic of California.’ ” They were also talking about the need for a coalition to build a bridge between New York and California -- with no onramps.”

But, he said, what was actually learned election night was “that there are two Americas, and we have to do a lot of work to bring the country together.”

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Times staff writer Rachel Abramowitz and correspondent Dana Calvo contributed to this report.