Hollywood and politics. A positive combination or all glitz, no substance?

Top stars such as George Clooney, Jennifer Aniston, and Barbra Streisand attended in February what is sure to be the first of many Hollywood fundraisers for the 2008 presidential election. Despite the big name gathering, the real star of the show was Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Hollywood has always backed the Clinton political emptire, but the political tide in Hollywood seems to be shifting away from the candidate with ties to the White House.

The fundraiser brought in a little over $1million for the 45-year-old presidential candidate and was arranged by three of the entertainment industry's biggest names - DreamWorks studio founders Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. These guys have big money to invest in rewriting the script of American politics.

Presidential candidates have always been attracted to California by the prospect of high dollars and the opportunity to soak up some of the Hollywood glamour and limelight. The star-studded fundraiser for the Illinois senator was just the latest California stopover from top-tier presidential contenders from both parties, including Arizona Sen. John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and husband Bill Clinton have a long standing relationship with the movie and entertainment industry. And let's face it, Hollywood and the state of California have a lot of money to spend and politicians want to make sure they are first in line to receive funding.

Former Democratic Vice President Al Gore's documentary on global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," won an Oscar for best documentary at the 2007 Academy Awards which went green for the red carpet event and went so far as donating leftover food from the sit down gala to a shelter and printing the evening's programs on environmentally-friendly paper. On the surface this might all seem to translate into meaningless gestures that pale in the face of the excesses of Hollywood, but the stars want to make a statement.

In 2002 entertainment ranked first among all industries funding Democratic Party committees, according to a September 2004 article in the Atlantic Monthly. And roughly 80 percent of the industry's party contributions went to Democratic candidates and committees; just 20 percent went to the Republican Party. From 1989 to 2004 Hollywood had given the party nearly $100 million for federal elections alone--close to the $114 million Republicans received from their friends in the oil and gas industries.

Once upon a time, Hollywood had its share of conservative Republicans: Bob Hope, Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Glenn Ford, Barbara Stanwyck, Ginger Rogers, Claudette Colbert. And let's not forget former actor Ronald Reagan, who served as 40th president of the United States of America, and current California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Both political parties receive money from constituents and backers with agendas they want to support. Where the money flows, the politicians will follow, no matter what party they are with. The problem with the Hollywood agenda is it all seems to be about glitz, glamour, and idealistic dreams that sound good on paper, but may not translate on to the big screen, or real life.
 

Uncle Rocky

ACheapSeat.com