Hollywood Political Event Stirs Up Storm

It was the kind of evening Hollywood is known for: a gathering of deep-pocketed entertainment industry liberals to discuss a strategy for electing a Democratic president next year.

But as guests arrived at the Beverly Hilton on Tuesday night, the meeting had become a target of conservatives, who attacked it as a symbol of excessive liberal rage toward President Bush.

Campaign finance reform advocates, meanwhile, worried that it exemplified efforts to dodge new campaign finance laws banning unlimited political contributions.

The session -- initiated by Laurie David, wife of HBO star Larry David, and co-hosted by actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus and 20 others -- was an attempt to acquaint the liberals with America Coming Together, an initiative to mobilize Democrats in 17 states that may prove crucial to the outcome of the 2004 presidential race.

The event also was intended to build support for the Media Fund, an effort organized by Harold M. Ickes, a former key aide to President Clinton. This group hopes to raise as much as $80 million to fund an independent advertising campaign for the eventual Democratic presidential nominee.

The invitation to the gathering, which was closed to the media and lacked the glitz that usually marks such events, said the fund “will provide a strong message on television and radio by trumpeting the shortcomings of the Bush Republican agenda and articulating the positive differences in Democratic policies.”

It added: “This is the most important meeting you can attend to prevent the advancement of the current extremist right wing agenda.”

Leaders of America Coming Together and the Media Fund say they are simply pursuing the type of political activities that have helped the Republican Party for years. They note that the GOP has benefited from ads and other political efforts financed by numerous pro-GOP business organizations and advocacy groups that oppose abortion and restrictions on gun ownership.

But by Monday, Matt Drudge, the creator of the online Drudge Report, was reporting on the Internet that the event’s organizers were billing it as a “Hate Bush Meeting” -- a charge its orchestrators vehemently denied and seemed to stem from wording added to the invitation by someone as it percolated through e-mail.

Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh called it a meeting of “Left Coast Hollywood Kooks” and on his Web site posted photos of Jane Fonda, Barbra Streisand and liberal filmmaker Michael Moore -- though they were not associated with the event.

But behind these attacks was another issue -- the way substantial sums of money continue to flow into the political process, despite the campaign finance reform law approved last year that was sponsored by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.).

Critics charge that groups like America Coming Together and the Media Fund are providing an outlet for the unlimited contributions known as soft money that the law banned. The Democratic Party -- more so than the Republicans -- relied on these large donations to finance its grass-roots organization and national advertising campaigns.

With the Democratic National Committee likely to have far less money for such activities in 2004, the two groups that held the meeting in Los Angeles are hoping to fill the gap, partly by tapping the same wealthy donors who provided soft money to the party.

“You’ve got these backdoor channels for soft money,” said Bill Allison, managing editor of the Center for Public Integrity. “A lot of it’s being done -- surprise, surprise -- to benefit some candidates and attack others in the same way a lot of the parties used soft money.”

Such critics also are concerned that these new groups will receive less oversight from federal officials than the political parties do.

Ultimately, the low-key nature of Tuesday’s gathering was a striking contrast to the controversy that surrounded it. Attendees arrived in jeans, denim jackets, black pants, black turtlenecks and, in some cases, sandals. Three people walked into the hotel’s Versailles ballroom wearing T-shirts with an image of Bush with a red line through it.

America Coming Together is intended to act as an umbrella organization for mobilization efforts by a broad range of Democratic interest groups. Its members include representatives of the Sierra Club, powerful unions such as the Service Employees International Union, and other left-leaning groups such as Emily’s List, which raises money for Democratic female candidates.

Ellen Malcolm, president of Amercia Coming Together, said that group was already operating in Ohio, canvassing voters, and hopes to be active in eight states by year’s end. It and the Media Fund have held similar meetings to solicit donors in other cities, including Seattle and New York, without attracting such attention.

“We’re operating totally within the law,” said Ickes, president of the Media Fund.

The fund-raising drive, Ickes said, is meant to replace the soft money funding that helped the Democratic Party run $75 million in issue ads in 2000. The Media Fund, he said, can raise unlimited amounts to finance radio and television from late March until the conventions.

“The critical distinction here is we are not a party committee,” Ickes said.

Ickes said the “Hate Bush Meeting” label may have been tacked on by one of the many people who received the e-mail invitation before it eventually reached Drudge.

The New York Daily News reported Tuesday that a man in the Midwest who declined to reveal his name added the “hate Bush” phrase in the e-mail’s subject line.

Jim Dyke, communications director of the Republican National Committee, said wherever the phrase came from, it was “descriptive of the liberal elites’ ” view of Bush.

Dyke added: “I doubt that anyone who is going [to the Tuesday meeting] disagrees with the e-mail title.”

The e-mail received by The Times billed the event only as a “Big Meeting.”

But Ickes said: “Those of us who are involved in these organizations on a day-to-day basis don’t hate Bush. We don’t like his policies.”

What coalition supporters are concerned about, he said, is the war in Iraq, job losses, the federal deficit, the weakening of environmental protections and the prospect of a federal judiciary -- especially the Supreme Court -- with a number of Bush appointees.

“We see him as representing very radical policies and leading the country in the wrong direction,” he said.

America Coming Together has already received a $10-million pledge from billionaire philanthropist George Soros -- a contribution that infuriated some Republican leaders.

Marge Tabankin, a Hollywood political consultant and one of the hosts of Tuesday’s meeting, said Republicans “are looking at what the Democrats are doing and they’re getting really nervous and they’re trying to blow it up. What they’re realizing is that this time around, there is likely to be a more level playing field, financially.”

If the meeting demonstrated the depth of opposition to the Bush administration among many in Hollywood, it also underscored the hostility many conservatives feel toward what they term the “cultural elite.”

Calls and faxes attacking the gathering’s sponsors -- some of them anti-Semitic -- came in from around the country from people who heard about it on conservative talk radio.

But in Los Angeles, the unexpected buzz caused the event to mushroom from 100 people to 230 -- prompting the organizers to find a bigger room at the Beverly Hilton and to turn away many people who wanted to come, organizers said.

Among those expected to attend were Christine Lahti, Aaron Sorkin, Rob Reiner, Heather Thomas, producer Paula Weinstein, and “MASH” television star Mike Farrell.

Director Robert Greenwald, a co-host, joked that organizers would have to thank their detractors -- “or put them on retainer.”

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O’Connor reported from Los Angeles; Brownstein from Washington. Times staff writer Allison Hoffman contributed to this report.