Jeffrey Katzenberg, Harvey Weinstein, Tyler Perry and Eva Longoria have helped raise some very big bucks for Barack Obama in 2012.
The President’s re-election campaign voluntarily released a list today of its big bundler donors for the first quarter of the year – it includes a number of Hollywood names. Unsurprisingly, Weinstein and Katzenberg were in the top bracket of those who pulled together millions in donations from relatives, friends and business associates for the Obama campaign. The Oscar-winning producer and the DreamWorks CEO both raised more than $500,000 for the incumbent. Tyler Perry, who held two recent Atlanta fundraisers for the President, shows up in $500,000+ category for the first time. Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos, producer Colleen Bell and HBO’s James Costos bundled more than half a million for Obama. Comcast EVP David Cohen and his wife Rhonda as well Mai Lassiter, wife of Hitch producer James Lassiter, former DreamWorks corporate communications boss and Katzenberg political advisor Andy Spahn and Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour were also in the
top bundler bracket. Desperate Housewives’ Eva Longoria, another longtime supporter of the President, Warner Bros.’ Josh Berger and Jamie Lynton, wife of SONY CEO Michael Lynton, raised between $200,000 and $500,000 each. Lynton himself, WME’s Ari Emanuel, Kelly Meyer, wife of Universal Studios President Ron Meyer, Rebecca Carter, wife of Lady Gaga’s manager Troy Carter, and entertainment lawyer Joe Calabrese were among those in the $100,000 to $200,000 bracket. Former News Corp President Peter Chernin, Treme actor Wendell Pierce, HBO co-president Richard Plepler and talent manager Eric Ortner were in the $50,000 to $100,000 category.
Bundling has its perks. Among the Presidential privileges bestowed on the bundlers are face time with Obama and White House visits. The King’s Speech producer Weinstein, along with George Clooney and several other Tinseltown types, were among the guests at the White House on March 14, 2012 for a state dinner for UK PM David Cameron.
Hollywood has long been good to Obama financially, and now especially as his re-election efforts heat up. Two fundraisers in February, at the home of The Bold and The Beautiful producer Bradley Bell and his wife Colleen, are estimated to have pulled in over $4 million alone for the campaign and the Democratic Party. A swanky intimate dinner May 10 at George Clooney’s house has tickets going for $35,800 each — although the campaign is raffling two less pricey invites for small donation supporters to join the star and the commander-in-chief.
The Obama campaign has so far raised approximately $350 million for the President’s re-election.
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Wow. It certainly costs a lot of money to play the part of “man of the people.” Just sayin’. Please. Help me. Somebody. I’m tied to the roof of some billionaire’s car and he intends to break the speed limit to get to La Jolla to go all Harvey Weinstein on the contractors. Ease up dude. Settle for a tasteful lordly “easement” on your house like Chicago’s F.D.R, uh, B.H.O. What’s good about all of this money (for both candidates) is that none of it will come with expectations of strings attached. Power corrupts absolutely alright. You think there’s a connection between these bundles and the punishing blackmailing cost of cable/inter-net bundles? Nah. Plus, although my game is miniature, I really NEED The Golf Channel.
i’d rather sit next to eva langoria.
Typical that Obama feels comfortable around Hollywood types. The guy is nothing more than an actor himself. Politics is such a filthy business.
What a terrible thing to get money from Hollywood types whose sole interest is entertaining people like you…yet I am sure you have no issue with people like the Koch Bros, and others who contribute 50x what these people do, and their sole interest is in destroying the working class, deregulating business so they can increase profits at the expense of safety, your safety.
You mean the Kochs who have created a million more jobs than the Obama regime has even tried to do?? You mean the Kochs who employ and pay millions more in taxes than George Soros and Warren Buffett?
Get your facts straight Opinionated, but I guess that is all you are, an opinion not a fact.
So says the “Posts on Deadline.com message boards” type.
The right’s “let’s censor Hollywood” thing from the 80s and 90s seems so archaic now that it’s not hard to see that the GOP’s main problem with the the town anymore (always) is that it’s the only concentration of wealth/industry in the country that isn’t reliably theirs.
Uhh, Joe you do realize that the people trying to censor hollywood in the 80′s and 90′s were Democrats?? Right? Tipper Gore, remember her, wife of Al Gore, and the PMRC were all left wing censors who wanted to ban or label everything. Republicans want LESS government control nor more, you are mixing the two up.