Project Hands Across Hollywood Is in Full Political Swing

If it were a movie, it might be called “101 Donations.”

With Congress in recess, the 1998 elections around the corner and federal campaign reform stalled, politicians are practically stumbling over one another as they arrive in Hollywood in a pre-holiday drive to raise donations and cement relationships with powerful, well-heeled backers in show business.

President Clinton’s fund-raising foray last weekend in Los Angeles, where he raised $800,000 for the Democratic National Committee and the nonpartisan Rock the Vote group, was the most visible such visit, but as many as 20 U.S. senators--most of them Democrats--as well as some members of Congress are expected in town soon to tap the concentrated wealth of L.A.’s entertainment industry.

“I’m sure people in the industry who are active politically will be getting calls, requests for meetings and fund-raising solicitations between now and the holidays,” said Andy Spahn, political advisor to DreamWorks’ founders Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg--three of Hollywood’s biggest contributors to the Democratic Party.

This week, House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) attended a swank fund-raiser hosted by billionaire producer-oilman Marvin Davis, while on another night Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) attended a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser thrown by Mo Ostin, who heads the music division at DreamWorks SKG.

Today, Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) are scheduled to attend a brunch on behalf of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee at the Beverly Hills-area home of Haim Saban, chairman of Saban Entertainment, which produces “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.”

And last weekend, Saban hosted a DNC fund-raiser featuring Clinton, where tickets--not tax-deductible--went for $10,000 to $100,000 per couple.

With 34 U.S. Senate and all House seats up for grabs in 1998, the lineup of senators alone who have recently made an appearance or are coming to town includes Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), Sen. John Breaux (D-La.), Sen. Carol Mosely Braun (D-Ill.) and Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.).

Since the days of the studio moguls, the entertainment industry has been an important destination for candidates seeking campaign funds, but this fall the Hollywood political landscape has been altered.

The Hollywood Women’s Political Committee, an ideologically progressive political action committee that bestowed millions of dollars over the years on liberal candidates, shut down this past summer. Leaders of the high-profile group, which featured Barbra Streisand among its founders, said they were uncomfortable participating in a political process where the all-consuming quest for money seemed paramount.

With the committee now shuttered, candidates have no convenient starting point to play the Hollywood fund-raising game, so they are concentrating--as always--on cultivating politically active individuals, flooding them with campaign solicitations or asking them to attend fund-raisers.

“I’m on everybody’s list--it’s like getting catalogs,” said former theatrical producer Peg Yorkin, who now chairs the Feminist Majority. “I was invited to a $25,000-per-couple fund-raiser and the person who asked me to go said, ‘It’s not as bad as last week. [Clinton] had a $50,000-per-couple fund-raiser in Florida.’ ”

USC political science professor Herbert E. Alexander said the Hollywood women’s committee was important for candidates because it provided a means to network with people in show business.

“It gave candidates access to people with money,” Alexander said. “People would meet through the Hollywood women’s group and somebody would then agree to hold a dinner [for the candidate] at his or her house. In political fund-raising, as in all fund-raising, it takes a lot of networking. Face-to-face fund-raising is always the best because it is hard to turn somebody down face to face.”

Boxer, who received strong backing from the committee during its existence, today is relying on friendships she cultivated on the committee to raise money for her campaign.

“Individual members of the Hollywood Women’s Political Committee are still helping with those kind of tasks, but not under the auspices of the committee,” a Boxer spokesman said.

For politicians, Hollywood has been a proverbial pot at the end of the rainbow.

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During the 1995-96 election cycle, political action committees run by the movie, TV and recording industries gave $1.6 million to Republicans and another $1.2 million to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that tracks campaign donations.

Show business, largely centered in Southern California, is only one sector of the U.S. economy that gives readily to politicians. During the same election cycle, for example, the center found that the insurance industry gave $10.6 million to the parties and the oil and gas industry gave $6 million.

Yet, for all its efforts at wooing politicians, Hollywood has had a spotty record of success. On the one hand, it won a major victory when Congress and the president adopted far-reaching regulatory changes in the telecommunications industry, but the industry also has come under intense criticism for allegedly polluting the nation’s culture with high doses of violence and sex in films, TV programs and rap recordings. Indeed, broadcasters--with the notable exceptions of NBC and Black Entertainment Television--have instituted a ratings system, and Congress has mandated that TVs come with “V-chips” to help parents prevent their children from seeing shows with violent or sexual content.

It is against this background that politicians are once again streaming to Hollywood.

Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, who are not running for office next year, have made Hollywood a priority when it comes to fund-raising.

Clinton arrived in Los Angeles last weekend and spent two nights at the beachfront home of DreamWorks’ Katzenberg. The president later dined at Giorgio off Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu with Katzenberg, Geffen, actor Tom Hanks and about a dozen other guests. Spielberg and his wife, actress Kate Capshaw, could not attend because of a scheduling conflict, according to DreamWorks’ Spahn.

Geffen helped raised $10 million for the president during the 1996 campaign. In fact, the three DreamWorks principals have each contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Democratic Party and to various candidates.

On Sunday, Clinton attended two local fund-raisers--one at Spago in Beverly Hills, when he raised about $100,000 for the nonpartisan group Rock the Vote, and the other the Saban-hosted event for DNC.

Gore, meanwhile, has been a frequent visitor to Hollywood. Spahn noted that Gore recently attended a small dinner at the home of producer Steve Tisch (“Forrest Gump”), another large Democratic contributor.

Margery Tabankin, philanthropic advisor to Spielberg and Streisand, said that despite the number of politicians trekking to Hollywood this fall, she foresees an even bigger invasion after the first of the year when the campaigns really heat up.

“Given that campaign finance reform has not passed,” Tabankin said, “the ongoing search for money will continue to drive these fund-raising machines.”

Tabankin pointed out that among those pressing the flesh in Hollywood are members of the U.S. Senate’s Class of ‘92, those senators who were first elected along with President Clinton. One of those is Braun, who paid a recent visit to various political backers in Hollywood as she prepares for a tough race next year.

Boxer, who also faces a potentially close contest in 1998 in her bid for reelection, has held two recent entertainment industry-related fund-raisers, aides said. They included a reception at the home of songwriter Marilyn Bergman and a dinner with Boxer at the home of former MCA President Sid Sheinberg. Another Boxer fund-raiser, featuring Gore, was held at the Regency Club and, the senator’s aides said, the principal sponsor of that event was John F. Cooke, executive vice president for corporate affairs at the Walt Disney Co.

While the Hollywood creative community has for decades been a bastion of Democratic liberalism, the business side of Hollywood has tended to support both parties, particularly now that the GOP has taken control of both houses of Congress.

“It’s a strange dance, but there is a kind of entrancement between these two,” said USC’s Alexander. “On the one hand, the Hollywood people tend to think that the big stars are in Washington making policy, while the people in Washington think the big stars are in Hollywood making money.”