Primaries bring Hollywood plot twist

Obama's ascendancy signals industry shift

By TED JOHNSON

Throughout this race to pick a Democratic nominee for president, Hollywood has been evenly, sometimes bitterly and other times absurdly divided over Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Couples have split along gender lines. Friends engage in nasty email wars. Families get rattled even talking about their choices. A few people, like Larry David, have found it too unbearable not to comment publicly.

So how does the entertainment industry unify?

The question takes on fresh urgency if Obama is the nominee -- a prospect that looks more likely after last week's Indiana and North Carolina primaries. His ascendancy signals a shift to a different and relatively younger pool of fund-raisers and donors, altering the industry's center of political gravity as to who hosts events, who has access to the candidate and the top campaign players, and who commands the time and attention.

For years, much of Hollywood's political establishment has centered around the Clintons, and longtime politically active figures like Steve Bing, Haim Saban, Ron Burkle and Rob Reiner placed their bets on Hillary.

Last year, when the election buildup began, it seemed unthinkable that she wouldn't win, with Saban even predicting to NBC News, "Those that have opted to support other candidates I believe will very quickly come home."

Many did not.

Obama drew such notables as Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen as bundlers, and Jeremy Bernard and Rufus Gifford as L.A.-based fund-raising consultants, but he chose as his California finance co-chairs music industry exec Nicole Avant and Wild Brain CEO Charles Rivkin -- long politically active yet relatively new compared with the Clinton juggernaut.

It's tempting to characterize it as a generational split, mirroring each candidate's support in the exit polls. After all, Hollywood's biggest creative contributions to the campaign have come in the form of YouTube videos: the Obama one by will.i.am, 33; the Clinton spot featuring Jack Nicholson, 71. Then again, Obama has deployed veteran actor James Whitmore Jr., 86, to campaign events, while "Ugly Betty" star America Ferrera, 24, has been gung-ho for Hillary on the trail.

Nor has it been easy to define the race along gender lines. One Obama fund-raiser who hosted an event at her home in October said, a bit bemusedly, that it was much easier to draw women to the event than gay men.

In any case, if Obama is the victor, it will set off a delicate dance to bring the Clinton team into the fold.

Views have hardened as the race has dragged on. CNN reported last week that Harvey Weinstein, a Clinton supporter, called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and threatened to withhold contributions for congressional candidates unless she agreed to a plan where he would help finance re-votes in Michigan and Florida. Weinstein denied the threat, but he confirmed proposing the plan.

In the words of one very active Clinton supporter, "Everything is different now because we've gone on so long and the cement has dried."

Obama's team will need Clintonites, not just for their show of support but for their fund-raising prowess. More than any other candidate, Clinton was the most aggressive in drawing "double max" contributors who ponied up $2,300 for the primary and another $2,300 for the general election. She can't use the latter money unless she's the nominee. If she isn't, it has to be refunded. Or perhaps Obama's team can persuade these donors to send their contributions to Obama.

Yet as much as there's an expectation of unity, there's also the question of loyalty. In 2004, there were some resentments among those who had stayed with John Kerry throughout the primary when suddenly, as the general election approached, backers of Howard Dean and other candidates seemed to swoop in and steal the show. The Obama camp wants to make sure that those who stayed with the campaign through thick and thin won't be aced out of high-profile roles in the general election.

But even as some pundits write off Clinton's prospects, there has been surprisingly little team switching so far.

Avant believes Clinton supporters eventually will back Obama, or vice versa if that's how things end up.

"The goal now is to finish what we started, unify the party and prepare for a victory in November," she says.

Naturally, that will be on the minds of many when DNC chairman Dean meets with Los Angeles fund-raisers May 14. He previously gathered supporters of both camps to a March event at Rivkin's home, and, despite some tense moments, no one stormed out vowing to vote for John McCain.

But a period of catharsis awaits those in the losing camp -- even if they rally behind the nominee come summer.

Marge Tabankin, executive director of the Streisand Foundation, says that among Clinton supporters, "There is a sense of reality settling in, that it will be really hard for her to pull this one out. But they are not giving up."

In the end, much will depend on the candidates themselves, how they win and how they lose.

Sim Farar, one of Clinton's national finance chairs, predicts eventual unity, but he wasn't buying into the spin that Obama has the race locked up. He's helping to organize a fund-raiser for Clinton in Los Angeles on May 15.

He says he talked to Clinton the day after the Indiana and North Carolina vote to express his support for continuing on.

As he says, "It is not over until she says it is over."