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Meet the New George Soros – Mother Jones. Skip to main content. Illustration: Robert Risko. On the night of March 2. Scarpetta, a posh Italian restaurant in Beverly Hills’ Golden Triangle. They wore DC power suits but ditched the ties—their one concession to LA fashion. For a bunch of hacks more at ease on Capitol Hill than Rodeo Drive, they blended in well enough.
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Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney had spent their adult lives climbing the rungs of Democratic politics, including a stint together in the Obama White House; pundit and consultant Paul Begala had advised Bill Clinton in the 1. Geoff Garin had been a top pollster for some 3. A hostess led them through the Mediterranean- themed dining room, all dark woods and tan walls lit by golden glass lamps, then up a flight of stairs to a private room. Awaiting them was the man they hoped would be their bell cow. That was the term Begala, the Texas- raised funnyman of the group, used to describe a megadonor who leads his rich friends to bankroll a candidate or cause.
Their dining companion, Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO of Dream. Works Animation, raised millions for the Obama campaign in 2. They wanted him to take the lead in funding a new super- PAC to support president Obama’s reelection.
Burton, Sweeney, Begala, and Garin didn’t like super- PACs, which can raise and spend unlimited amounts. Nor did the president, who had ripped them as a “threat to our democracy.” Nor did Katzenberg, who felt that the 2.
Citizens United decision was a huge blunder. And yet here he was, listening to a pitch that Begala had rehearsed on the flight to LA. It was hard to think of a presidential election, Begala said, with more at stake. With the economy on the mend, health care reform on the books but not yet enacted, the wars in the Middle East winding down…“I know all that,” Katzenberg interrupted. Tell me your business plan.” At 6. Katzenberg, who stands 5- foot- 5, cut a lean and fit figure (“On background, he’s incredibly buff,” says a friend of his), his clean- shaven face taut and tanned, with a disarming, horsey smile.
What remained of his graying hair was trimmed to a fine stubble. He wore a V- neck sweater over a T- shirt, slacks, and sneakers—his Hollywood CEO uniform—and he grilled the four operatives with the same intensity he would a potential business partner. What was their fundraising target, and how would they reach it?
How would they spend their money—on broadcast, cable TV, online? Who would be their research director?
Their ad maker? How much would they pay themselves? Watch Nights And Weekends Megavideo. What was their strategy?
The answer to that last one was simple: Destroy Mitt Romney. The Republican primaries were nearly a year away, but the four politicos believed that Romney would end up the nominee, so they would focus on him and ignore the rest of the field. They would attack him using the same approach employed by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and other groups in 2. Just as the conservatives took away Kerry’s war record,” Begala said, “we’re going to take away Romney’s strongest asset: his business record.”Katzenberg, who is worth an estimated $8. By the end of dinner, he pledged $2 million to the super- PAC, later named Priorities USA Action, and promised more money down the road—no strings attached. He also offered to tap his network of wealthy friends and colleagues.
And he picked up the tab. Begala had found his bell cow. It was the most important meeting of the entire campaign,” he told me recently.
If you tell people, ‘Jeffrey’s behind this, Jeffrey’s helping us,’ man, that really helps.”Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg Prensa Internacional/ZUMA Press. Katzenberg’s investment paid off big for Obama.
Priorities zeroed in on Romney’s time at the private equity firm Bain Capital, cutting a series of ads depicting him as a real- life C. Montgomery Burns. In one, a union worker recounted how he was ordered to build a stage at his Indiana paper factory; days later, Bain executives strode across it to announce they were closing the plant and firing everyone. It was rated the most effective ad of the campaign; as Republican message maker Frank Luntz would say, “That ad alone has killed Mitt Romney in Ohio.”Katzenberg gave $3. Democratic super- PACs during the 2. There’s no telling how much he might have given to other groups that don’t disclose their donors.) He steered millions more to Priorities—his friend and business partner, Steven Spielberg, gave $1 million, for instance. He hosted numerous fundraisers for Obama and raised more for the president than anyone else in California.
All told, Katzenberg gave or raised more than $3. Obama, helping Hollywood make up for Wall Street’s plummeting financial support of the president. And that’s not counting the funds he marshaled for other Democrats, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D- Mass.) and California Gov.
Jerry Brown.“It’s hard to think of any other donor going back to the [1. Bill Allison of the Sunlight Foundation. He’s like soy sauce in Chinese food: He’s everywhere.”The deep- pocketed kingmaker is a recurring character in American politics. William Mc. Kinley might have lost the 1.
Mark Hanna, the former US senator and master fundraiser. Harry S. Truman won his first Senate race, in 1. Boss Tom” Pendergast, the ruthless Missouri power broker later thrown in prison for tax evasion. Today, conservatives love to demonize George Soros, the liberal financier who gave a record $2. John Kerry in 2. 00.
But Soros, a longtime supporter of campaign finance reform, didn’t raise a dime for Obama in 2. Priorities super- PAC until very late in the campaign. Katzenberg, who shuns sleep, guzzles Diet Coke, and says his parents “didn’t raise me to sit on the sidelines,” gave early and often. No one in the United States did what Katzenberg did,” a fellow Obama fundraiser says.
He is in a class of one.”Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign manager, hails Katzenberg for his role in reelecting the president: “He’s one of the best, if not the best, fundraisers out there.”If the Katzenberg story has a prequel, it is the story of Lew Wasserman, the canny, irascible, and ruthless mogul who in the 1. Music Corporation of America (MCA) from a middling talent agency into a mighty studio. Wasserman, a lifelong Democrat, saw the advantages to having friends in power, so he built Hollywood’s first real political machine, a network of performers, business partners, and studio bosses who gave generously to his handpicked candidates. By the 1. 99. 0s, he was one of the Democratic Party’s all- time biggest donors. Wasserman and his wife, Edie, spoke of US presidents like they were cousins—Jack and Jimmy and Ronnie and Bill; once Wasserman slept in the White House when he couldn’t find a DC hotel room. And when he saw a headline that read something like, “Lew Wasserman Controls Hollywood.
Does He Control Washington Too?” he offhandedly said, “Of course I do.”Wasserman withdrew from politics in the late ’9. Democrats’ fundraising machine. The entertainment industry still rallied behind Al Gore in 2. Kerry in 2. 00. 4. But the marquee donors of that period—movie producer Steve Bing, Power Rangers creator Haim Saban—couldn’t get Hollywood to fall in line like Wasserman could. After a ban on unlimited, undisclosed donations to parties—so- called soft money—went into effect following the 2.
Democrats fell off. The industry’s Republican giving, paltry as it was, held steady.)Then came Citizens United, dismantling limits on political giving and paving the way for super- PACs—and a new kind of kingmaker arose. So, in 2. 01. 2 megadonors like Katzenberg and casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson demonstrated just how far some 1- percenters were willing to open their wallets. There’s now a whole range of opportunities for donors that didn’t exist before Citizens United,” says Bill Allison.
And that’s not even accounting for the fact that the Supreme Court could lift what restrictions remain on individual giving, allowing donors to give millions directly to campaigns and parties. Watch All Roads Lead To Rome 4Shared.