Michael Hastings reports on President Obama’s waning support in Tinseltown:
Over the past week, I’d spoken to more than a dozen Hollywood players, and all had a litany of criticisms. “I’ll write the check,” one top producer, whose films have made over a billion at the box office, told me. “But I’m not going to bother voting for him.” Another studio exec—in a land where the hard driven deal is cultural requirement —wondered if the president’s penchant for compromise meant he had, in the parlance of our times, “no balls.”
A number of other actors and producers lamented how they’d gone so far as to donate and volunteer for Obama in 2008—and now, disgusted, they were planning on doing neither this time around. They had bought what Obama was selling for four years—about the wars, about Gitmo, about changing things in Washington, about the hope and the change—and Obama had let them down. Even Matt Damon—one of the president’s most stalwart celebrity supporters—famously said last year he was disappointed.
Obviously, the Obama campaign is hoping the early gay marriage endorsement will help energize big Democratic donors who were still sitting on the sidelines, particularly Hollywood liberals. And the timing couldn’t be better. Obama has a much-publicized fundraiser tonight at George Clooney’s house, and early next week he attends a fundraiser with Ricky Martin that’s reportedly aimed at donors in the gay community.
The question is, will his announcement be enough to coax out the checkbooks? Obama’s gay marriage endorsement has no real practical effect, and his policies haven’t changed. He still maintains it’s a state-by-state issue. And as others have noted, he only announced his position publicly after days of political pressure. Fortunately for Obama, Hollywood doesn’t tend to be well-informed on these issues. And that will definitely work to his advantage as he tries to woo back these donors.
I really don't think that in Year 4 of the Obama administration, having Hollywood celebrities fawn over and hype Obama would be an asset for him. That would be an embarrassing echo of the 2008 campaign, one that the Democrats would prefer that disenchanted swing voters not think about. n nThe strategic threat to Obama's reelection is defections, described by the theme "Obama's a nice guy, but he's just not up to the job." Matt Damon or will.i.am slobbering over him on Leno doesn't help that problem.
Obviously Hussein Obama's latest flip-flop is intended to rally his most left-wing supporters rather than capture votes from centrists and independents. Whatever Hussein may believe, his leftist supporters will interpret support for gay "marriage" as one more dagger thrust into that reactionary institution upholding bourgeois society called the "family". How Engels would be purring so if he only knew that the titular leader of the most advanced capitalist country in the world no longer defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Let us hope that Romney does not let this opportunity go to waste. He too should use it not only to rally his base but to erode Hussein Obama's base among Hispanics and blacks.