A Hollywood Welcome for Obama at Clooney Fund-Raiser
By JACKIE CALMES
3:40 p.m. | Updated LOS ANGELES – The buddy act that President Obama and George Clooney
have developed was on full display Thursday night at the actor’s home
here, where they entertained a Hollywood crowd that paid $40,000 a
person to support the president’s re-election.
The filmmaker Jeffrey Katzenberg, the DreamWorks Animation chief whom Mr. Clooney credited with organizing the dinner, said the event raised nearly $15 million, calling it a record for a presidential election fund-raiser. (Bloomberg reported that even if the $15 million number is accurate, it falls short of a record.) Roughly half came from the donors; the rest came from an Obama campaign sweepstakes online for small contributors, two of whom were picked to attend the event.
“Once again the entertainment industry has stepped forward in a very big way,” Mr. Katzenberg told the crowd, naming Presidents John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton as previous beneficiaries of Hollywood support.
The dinner showcased Mr. Obama’s popularity in the entertainment industry, whose financial backing has helped offset his lost support from Wall Street. And his stock on the West Coast was up further, just a day after Mr. Obama revealed his change of heart to support same-sex marriage, long a favored cause in Hollywood.
Mr. Obama made only an indirect reference to his decision to endorse gay marriage, just as he had earlier in the day at two fund-raisers in Seattle. But, as at the prior appearances, his allusions were clear enough to elicit cheers and applause.
“And obviously yesterday we made some news,” Mr. Obama said, which was enough to get an appreciative rise from the mix of stars, film studio chiefs and other entertainment executives. “But the truth is,” Mr. Obama continued, drawing a distinction between his views and those of Republicans, “it was a logical extension of what America is supposed to be. It grew directly out of this difference in visions.”
“Are we a country that includes everybody and gives everybody a shot and treats everybody fairly and is that going to make us stronger? Are we welcoming to immigrants? Are we welcoming to people who aren’t like us? Does that make us stronger? I believe it does. So that’s what’s at stake.”
Mr. Obama has said that he intended to announce his support for same-sex marriage before the election, and has acknowledged that his timetable was moved up after Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. last Sunday endorsed such unions in a television interview. The president, by announcing his own endorsement on Wednesday in an interview on ABC, avoided the awkwardness of coming here seemingly at odds with Mr. Biden on the issue.
Mr. Katzenberg, in introducing Mr. Obama, said, “Yesterday he did the right thing yet again” – sparking applause and cheers even without explicitly mentioning same-sex marriage.
Among the roughly 150 people in a large tent erected on Mr. Clooney’s outdoor basketball court were actors and entertainers including Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Salma Hayek, Tobey Maguire, Barbra Streisand and her husband, James Brolin, and the designers Diane von Furstenberg and Trina Turk.
Mr. Obama told the supporters that he would take turns at each of the 14 tables, and he stayed at Mr. Clooney’s dinner for nearly four hours; typically the president spends less than an hour at a fund-raiser.
Reporters were allowed inside the tent just for the 20 minutes that Mr. Obama was introduced and spoke. Mr. Clooney — who sat beside his girlfriend, Stacy Keibler, an actress and former professional wrestler — listened intently to Mr. Obama throughout the president’s remarks, his hands folded as in prayer and his chin resting on them. But the two men cut up as well.
The president, an avid basketball player, thanked Mr. Clooney “for letting us use his basketball court.” He added with a motion toward the actor, “This man has been talking smack about his basketball game ever since I’ve known him.” (The two took to the court on Friday morning, along with Mr. Maguire, to settle things before Mr. Obama departed for Reno, Nev.)
Their friendship, Mr. Obama said, began when Mr. Obama was still a senator and Mr. Clooney was pressing Congress for humanitarian aid to victims of war and famine in Sudan. Mr. Clooney has visited the White House several times since Mr. Obama was elected president, pressing the Sudan cause or attending social events.
Mr. Obama told of walking through Mr. Clooney’s Tudor-style manse prior to the dinner and seeing a copy of the famous “Hope” poster from the 2008 presidential campaign by the artist Shepard Fairey; Mr. Obama said the photo that was the basis of the poster was a picture of him and Mr. Clooney at a Sudan hearing, but the artist cropped out Mr. Clooney.
“And this is the first time that George Clooney has ever been Photoshopped out of a picture,” Mr. Obama said, to laughter and applause. “Never happened before, will never happen again.”
The president said Mr. Fairey gave Mr. Clooney a similar poster with both men pictured. “Why he said at the bottom, ‘Dope and Hope,’ I don’t know,” Mr. Obama joked.
(The Associated Press has reported that Mr. Fairey actually used another photo of Mr. Obama, by The A.P., but the artist said he used the separate picture of Mr. Obama and Mr. Clooney to escape a copyright infringement case with the news service. In February, Mr. Fairey admitted that he had been mistaken and pleaded guilty to fabricating and destroying evidence.)
When Mr. Obama went through his stump-speech recitation of his work on the economy, energy policy, education, banking regulations and health care, and made his usual cracks about his new wrinkles and gray hair, on this night he added, “George doesn’t have to go through these things.”
“Look at me!” Mr. Clooney shouted from his table in the audience.
“I like that in you, brother,” Mr. Obama said.
The filmmaker Jeffrey Katzenberg, the DreamWorks Animation chief whom Mr. Clooney credited with organizing the dinner, said the event raised nearly $15 million, calling it a record for a presidential election fund-raiser. (Bloomberg reported that even if the $15 million number is accurate, it falls short of a record.) Roughly half came from the donors; the rest came from an Obama campaign sweepstakes online for small contributors, two of whom were picked to attend the event.
“Once again the entertainment industry has stepped forward in a very big way,” Mr. Katzenberg told the crowd, naming Presidents John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton as previous beneficiaries of Hollywood support.
The dinner showcased Mr. Obama’s popularity in the entertainment industry, whose financial backing has helped offset his lost support from Wall Street. And his stock on the West Coast was up further, just a day after Mr. Obama revealed his change of heart to support same-sex marriage, long a favored cause in Hollywood.
Mr. Obama made only an indirect reference to his decision to endorse gay marriage, just as he had earlier in the day at two fund-raisers in Seattle. But, as at the prior appearances, his allusions were clear enough to elicit cheers and applause.
“And obviously yesterday we made some news,” Mr. Obama said, which was enough to get an appreciative rise from the mix of stars, film studio chiefs and other entertainment executives. “But the truth is,” Mr. Obama continued, drawing a distinction between his views and those of Republicans, “it was a logical extension of what America is supposed to be. It grew directly out of this difference in visions.”
“Are we a country that includes everybody and gives everybody a shot and treats everybody fairly and is that going to make us stronger? Are we welcoming to immigrants? Are we welcoming to people who aren’t like us? Does that make us stronger? I believe it does. So that’s what’s at stake.”
Mr. Obama has said that he intended to announce his support for same-sex marriage before the election, and has acknowledged that his timetable was moved up after Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. last Sunday endorsed such unions in a television interview. The president, by announcing his own endorsement on Wednesday in an interview on ABC, avoided the awkwardness of coming here seemingly at odds with Mr. Biden on the issue.
Mr. Katzenberg, in introducing Mr. Obama, said, “Yesterday he did the right thing yet again” – sparking applause and cheers even without explicitly mentioning same-sex marriage.
Among the roughly 150 people in a large tent erected on Mr. Clooney’s outdoor basketball court were actors and entertainers including Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Salma Hayek, Tobey Maguire, Barbra Streisand and her husband, James Brolin, and the designers Diane von Furstenberg and Trina Turk.
Mr. Obama told the supporters that he would take turns at each of the 14 tables, and he stayed at Mr. Clooney’s dinner for nearly four hours; typically the president spends less than an hour at a fund-raiser.
Reporters were allowed inside the tent just for the 20 minutes that Mr. Obama was introduced and spoke. Mr. Clooney — who sat beside his girlfriend, Stacy Keibler, an actress and former professional wrestler — listened intently to Mr. Obama throughout the president’s remarks, his hands folded as in prayer and his chin resting on them. But the two men cut up as well.
The president, an avid basketball player, thanked Mr. Clooney “for letting us use his basketball court.” He added with a motion toward the actor, “This man has been talking smack about his basketball game ever since I’ve known him.” (The two took to the court on Friday morning, along with Mr. Maguire, to settle things before Mr. Obama departed for Reno, Nev.)
Their friendship, Mr. Obama said, began when Mr. Obama was still a senator and Mr. Clooney was pressing Congress for humanitarian aid to victims of war and famine in Sudan. Mr. Clooney has visited the White House several times since Mr. Obama was elected president, pressing the Sudan cause or attending social events.
Mr. Obama told of walking through Mr. Clooney’s Tudor-style manse prior to the dinner and seeing a copy of the famous “Hope” poster from the 2008 presidential campaign by the artist Shepard Fairey; Mr. Obama said the photo that was the basis of the poster was a picture of him and Mr. Clooney at a Sudan hearing, but the artist cropped out Mr. Clooney.
“And this is the first time that George Clooney has ever been Photoshopped out of a picture,” Mr. Obama said, to laughter and applause. “Never happened before, will never happen again.”
The president said Mr. Fairey gave Mr. Clooney a similar poster with both men pictured. “Why he said at the bottom, ‘Dope and Hope,’ I don’t know,” Mr. Obama joked.
(The Associated Press has reported that Mr. Fairey actually used another photo of Mr. Obama, by The A.P., but the artist said he used the separate picture of Mr. Obama and Mr. Clooney to escape a copyright infringement case with the news service. In February, Mr. Fairey admitted that he had been mistaken and pleaded guilty to fabricating and destroying evidence.)
When Mr. Obama went through his stump-speech recitation of his work on the economy, energy policy, education, banking regulations and health care, and made his usual cracks about his new wrinkles and gray hair, on this night he added, “George doesn’t have to go through these things.”
“Look at me!” Mr. Clooney shouted from his table in the audience.
“I like that in you, brother,” Mr. Obama said.
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