Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Back to Opinion

Katzenberg’s $12 Million Party for Obama

President Obama raised a reported $12 million for his reelection campaign at a Hollywood fundraiser at George Clooney’s home co-hosted by top Obama donor Jeffrey Katzenbeg.

The May 10 fundraiser came days after Obama announced his personal support of legal recognition for gay marriage.

Though the president stopped well short of calling for federal legislation, the shift on gay marriage was seen by some observers as helpful in his campaign’s broad effort to reassure Hollywood Democrats, who have given less than expected so far in 2012.

Those efforts seem to have paid off. The $12 million raised at the $40,000 per plate dinner is reportedly the largest sum ever gathered at fundraiser for a presidential election.

“Once again the entertainment industry has stepped forward in a very big way,” Katzenberg said in his address to the crowd, according to press reports.

Katzenberg, whom the Forward profiled last month, is the largest individual donor to the pro-Obama super PAC, Priorities USA Action. Known as Obama’s biggest supporter in Hollywood, he is likely also Obama’s biggest Jewish supporter.

Steven Spielberg, Katzenberg’s former business partner, did not attend the fundraiser, according to a spokesman. A spokesman for David Geffen, who co-founded Dreamworks with Spielberg and Katzenberg, did not respond to a request for comment on whether he had attended.

Attendees included Barbara Streisand and Billy Crystal, among other Hollywood bigs. Also in attendance was Representative Howard Berman, the Los Angeles Democrat locked in a bitter primary battle with fellow Democratic congressman Brad Sherman. According to pool reports, Berman rode with Obama from the president’s helicopter to the fundraiser.

Obama thanked Katzenberg personally, according to press pools reports. “I want to thank Jeffrey not just for this evening, but for his tenacious support and advocacy since we started back in 2007,” the president said. “Over the last three and a half years he remained an extraordinary friend.”

Obama said that Katzenberg had called him to offer criticisms during the 2008 presidential campaign. “[O]ccasionally he would call, and he would say, ‘Barack, I don’t think that things are working the way they’re supposed to.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.