New methods for campaign dollars

Obama courts Hollywood's young

By TED JOHNSON

Obama

They waited patiently behind the red velvet rope. Inside they sipped on any of three brands of vodka, lounging comfortably to a loud beat. And when Barack Obama arrived at this fund-raiser at Hollywood nightclub Boulevard3, they swarmed him like the paparazzi would pursue a tabloid darling.

It was not the Paris Hilton crowd, but this was a decidedly younger, looser group of entertainment industry professionals -- actors, producers and managers in their late 20s and 30s -- who came to hear Obama's inspirational message.

It was just one event over the weekend as both he and fellow Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton were in Los Angeles to court financial support. As their rival campaigns progress, it becomes more difficult to find new donors, as traditional money has been tapped. So they are hosting either smaller events or more unconventional ones.

Clinton was to attend a Sunday afternoon fund-raiser aimed at women at the Bel-Air home of real estate magnates Bren and Mel Simon, with co-hosts including Carol Biondi, Laura Hartigan, Sherry Lansing, Jane Nathanson and Cheryl Saban. A $1,000-per-person minimum was expected to help draw a slightly younger crowd.

And Obama also attended a $2,300-per person cocktail party that drew about 250 people to the home of Endeavor's Ari Emanuel and his wife, Sarah Addington, and co-hosted by Mai and James Lassiter and Jessica and Tom Rothman. On Sunday, he brunched at the Santa Monica home of Charles Rivkin, CEO of digital animation firm Wild Brain.

But the key to Obama's Boulevard3 event was its $500-per-person cost -- a bargain when it comes to entertainment political fund-raisers. Although such politically active figures as Lawrence Bender, Oliver Stone, Nicole Avant and Jane Fonda were in the mix, many in the crowd were political neophytes, drawn to Obama's call for a new kind of politics.

A chief criticism of Obama's campaign has been that it has to move beyond an inspirational message to specifics on such issues as health care and the environment. Although the Illinois senator alluded to such proposals as increasing fuel efficiency standards and curbing carbon emissions, he mainly kept to his campaign's message of inclusiveness. In his speech at the nightclub's two-level main room, bathed in blue light and lined with indoor trees, Obama evoked the spirit of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King and even suggested that growing a movement is what's more important.

"The thing that we need right now, more than fancy plans or white papers or policy wonks, what we need is you," Obama said, his hand rising repeatedly. "I am confident in my ability to lead this country, but I can't do it alone."

The event, which raised more than $300,000, was organized by O08 the Movement, a group of industry professionals seeking to reach a younger pool of donors and activists. Among its members is actor Hill Harper, one of Obama's law-school classmates. (He admitted that some of the fellow actors to whom he spoke had to be informed that there would be no red carpet). The group helped draw such celebrity names as Jessica Biel, Gabrielle Union, Taye Diggs, Anthony LaPaglia, Dave Annable, Kate Walsh, Nia Vardalos, Joy Bryant, Henry Simmons, Amy Smart and Regina King. Cedric the Entertainer introduced Obama on a makeshift stage.

Like Clinton has recently, Obama amped up his rhetoric about President Bush.

"We've had a can't-do, won't-do, won't-even-try style of government," he said. "We've had someone in the White House who feels we're not in it together, but that you are on your own. And a lot of us have lost that sense that we might participate in something larger than ourselves."

He said that the Iraq war "never should have been authorized, should never have been waged."

It was the only allusion he made to Clinton, who voted in 2002 to give President Bush the authority to use force in Iraq.

Earlier on Saturday, at the California Democratic Party convention in San Diego, Obama was even more forceful, with a large share of the delegates rising to their feet when he said, "I am proud that I stood up in 2002 when it wasn't popular." He was an Illinois state senator then but gave a speech opposing the war.

Clinton's campaign, on the other hand, has been driving home the theme of looking forward, not backward, when it comes to Iraq. In her speech, marked with its own brand of inspirational messages, she said the first thing she would do is "end this war now."

She called Bush's 2003 appearance on an aircraft carrier to proclaim "mission accomplished" in Iraq "one of the most shameful episodes in American history" and said of the administration overall, "I don't think we even know half the damage that he and the vice president have done."

At a press conference, one reporter asked Clinton why some delegates say that their "heart is with Obama" but their head is with her.

Clinton responded, "The fact is that I have a very clear-eyed view of what it is going to take from day one to turn the country around. I am going to be asking people to support me on the basis of who I am and the whole person. Head. Heart and everything else."