Hollywood celebrities are not only assisting with ads and appearances like actress Eva Longoria and rocker Bruce Springsteen do, but reaching into their wallets and donating to the Obama campaign in overwhelming numbers when compared to Romney campaign donations.
The sheer number of Hollywood donors has become large enough that The Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) now includes “celebrity” lists where the famous who give to a respective campaign are set forth.
Entertainers, athletes, authors and others are included on this political “A-list” based on paperwork that is filed with the Federal Election Commission.
“It's [the celebrity list] new for us,” CRP spokesperson Russ Choma told Reuters. “We started it a couple of weeks ago, mostly out of demand, but also because there are so many people on it.”
The polls may be tight but the money in Hollywood is loose in one only one ideological direction.
According to the CRP, celebrities have shelled out $684,006 to the Obama campaign and $43,250 to the Romney campaign through October, a 16-to-1 advantage for the president over the challenger.
198 notables wrote checks for Obama while 14 famous donors gave to Romney.
The celebs who gave at least $5,000 to the Obama effort include numerous Hollywood A-listers such as George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Will Smith, Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Downey Jr., Jamie Foxx, Will Ferrell, Ron Howard, Scarlett Johansson, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Eddie Murphy, Ellen DeGeneres, J.J. Abrams, Cameron Crowe, Sam Waterston, Brian Grazer, Adrian Grenier, Mariska Hargitay, Aaron Sorkin, and Quentin Tarantino.
Romney’s celebrity roster of Tinseltown residents includes the names of Scott Baio, Jerry Bruckheimer, Neil Simon, Orson Bean, and John O'Hurley. The former Massachusetts governor did get a high-profile donation from the world of sports from Yankee Alex Rodriguez in the amount of $250.
The CRP also tracks money from the entertainment industry as a whole, where Obama brought in $4,518,742 compared with Romney’s $836,038, a 5-to-1 ratio.
The money brought in from those in the industry who collect money from others, so-called bundlers, include Longoria, Wendell Pierce, Tyler Perry, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Harvey Weinstein, and Ron Meyer, who all collected more than $500,000 each.
The CRP reports that 41 Hollywood bundlers arranged for the Obama campaign coffers to swell in the amount of $11.4 million with nothing in this category reported for the Romney campaign.
Hollywood players have also given big bucks to the SuperPacs, notwithstanding their criticism of them.
The Center's data shows that among celebrity donors, Bill Maher, Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Morgan Freeman each gave about $1 million to Priorities USA Action, the SuperPac that supports Obama.
Katzenberg also gave $25,000 to the House Majority SuperPac. "Family Guy" creator and new Oscar host Seth MacFarlane contributed $150,000.
Billionaire investor George Soros recently gave $1 million to Priorities USA Action and another $250,000 to House Majority PAC. Soros is omnipresent in entertainment and news media circles, having donated $1 million to the organization known as Media Matters, reportedly to put Fox News out of business. Soros’s son, Jonathan launched yet another SuperPac, Friends of Democracy, that has raised a total of $2.1 million.
James Hirsen, J.D., M.A., in media psychology, is a New York Times best-selling author, media analyst, and law professor. Visit Newsmax.TV Hollywood. Read more reports from James Hirsen — Click Here Now.