Is Hollywood turning on Obama?

Despite having paid $30,400 for co-hosting honors, Barbara Streisand was a no-show at a recent Democratic Party fund-raiser.

(Image credit: Getty)

last updated 8 January 2015

During his swing through the West, President Obama attended a Democratic Party fundraiser at the Los Angeles home of "West Wing" producer John Wells — but two of the co-hosts, Barbra Streisand and Jeffrey Katzenberg, did not, despite having paid $30,400 per couple for co-hosting honors. Immediately, conservative critics took this as a sign that the president has alienated Hollywood's liberal establishment. Are they onto something? (Watch Jimmy Kimmel poke fun at the president's Hollywood visit)

A-list no-shows are a bad omen: It certainly looks bad that Streisand was a no-show, says Doug Powers at Michelle Malkin's blog. Dare we chalk this up to "another disgruntled elitist limo-lib who was all for wildly expensive programs until realizing somebody has to pay for them?" Or maybe, "sweet irony," she missed the event because she was caught in the "nightmarish" L.A. traffic jam tied to Obama's visit.

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Obama's doing just fine in Hollywood: Streisand and Katzenberg were out of town, along with the many other wealthy donors who vacation in mid-August, says Ted Johnson in Variety. But they attended with their checkbooks. And they're hardly alone in that, either: Hollywood has given $12.6 million to Democrats this election cycle, versus $4.7 million to Republicans, even as "donors in other industries have been hedging their bets."

Obama still has a "Hollywood problem": "Hollywood's liberal faithful" may be giving to the Democrats, says Guy Adams in The Independent. But they have a "curiously schizophrenic relationship" with Obama himself. Unlike Bill Clinton, Obama's made "no attempt to cozy up" to Hollywood, and Hollywood is underwhelmed by Obama's "earnest, academic, lawyerly" demeanor and his slow pace on their pet issues, especially the environment and gay rights.