As candidates position themselves for California’s governor’s race next year, Hollywood money and name support is already up for grabs among a handful of familiar politicians, who know that the entertainment industry will play a key role in determining who survives the primaries.
Each of the leaders has ties to build on:
L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa got donations from dozens of actors from Tom Hanks to Eva Longoria, directors including Michael Apted, and Steven Soderbergh and moguls like producer Steve Bing and William Morris CEO Jim Wiatt helping him breeze to reelection last year.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s campaign to legalize gay marriage has endeared him to Sean Penn, Rob Reiner and Rosie O’Donnell. Plus, he’s married to an actress, Jennifer Siebel.
And though he’s been out of the L.A. mainstream for a while, Attorney General Jerry Brown -- who at one point famously dated singer Linda Ronstadt -- has “a large cadre of Hollywood folks supporting him,” said Barbara O’Connor, director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and Media at California State University, Sacramento. Brown’s wife, Anne Gust, did not respond with any details. (See accompanying story, "Who's Behind Who.")
At a "friend-raiser" held at the home of former Yahoo chief and Warner Bros. mogul Terry Semel last month, presumed Republican candidate Meg Whitman did her best to make new Hollywood friends.
Despite Whitman's support for Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative, plenty of major Hollywood players showed up, including MGM Chairman Harry Sloan, producer Peter Guber, music producer David Foster and Semel's former Warner partner Bob Daly, according to people who were there.
At this early juncture, campaigns are still forming, solicitations are informal and loyalties could change -- just as they did early in last year’s presidential primary season, when lots of Hollywood donors hedged bets by supporting both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Reiner, for example, gave money to the Villaraigosa campaign last year.
Then there’s the Feinstein Factor.
As former mayor of San Francisco and senator since 1992, Dianne Feinstein is mulling over the idea of becoming California’s first woman governor. Without her in the mix, Brown led in the most recent statewide Field Poll, released last month, with 26 percent, followed by Villaraigosa at 22 and Newsom at 16. Four other candidates shared 14 percent, with 22 percent undecided.
But toss in Feinstein, and the numbers change dramatically. With Field pollsters including her in the mix, she led the others at 38 percent, with 16 percent each for Villaraigosa and Brown, 10 percent for Newsom, and another 8 percent spread among four other candidates, with 22 percent undecided. It’s widely expected that if she’s in, some of the boys would drop out, and Hollywood support would instantly galvanize behind her. She is expected to announce her decision any time now.
Among Republican voters, the same poll identified Whitman, the former eBay chief executive, as the leading contender, at 21 percent, to 18 for former Congressman Tom Campbell and 7 for state insurance commissioner Steve Poizner, with 54 percent undecided.
