Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg
Prensa Internacional/ZUMA Press
The aging, mostly hands-off Soros is still the right's biggest bogeyman. Conservatives should pay more attention to Jeffrey Katzenberg.
ON THE NIGHT OF MARCH 23, 2011, four political operatives arrived for dinner at Scarpetta, a posh Italian restaurant in Beverly Hills' Golden Triangle. They wore DC power suits but ditched the tiestheir one concession to LA fashion. For a bunch of hacks more at ease on Capitol Hill than Rodeo Drive, they blended in well enough. 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 1990s; Geoff Garin had been a top pollster for some 30 years. 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 DreamWorks Animation, raised millions for the Obama campaign in 2008, and the fate of their projectand, potentially, the presidencyhinged on convincing him to raise millions more in 2012. 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 2010 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 60, 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 sneakershis Hollywood CEO uniformand 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 moneyon broadcast, cable TV, online? Who would be their research director? Their ad maker? How much would they pay themselves? 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 2004. "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 $800 million, liked what he heard. By the end of dinner, he pledged $2 million to the super-PAC, later named Priorities USA Action, and promised more money down the roadno 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."
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 $3.15 million to Democratic super-PACs during the 2012 cyclealmost 30 times more than his total reported giving in 2008. (There's no telling how much he might have given to other groups that don't disclose their donors.) He steered millions more to Prioritieshis 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 $30 million to reelect 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 [1990s] or even further who did what he did," says 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 McKinley might have lost the 1896 presidential election without businessman Mark Hanna, the former US senator and master fundraiser. Harry S. Truman won his first Senate race, in 1934, thanks largely to "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 $24 million to elect John Kerry in 2004. But Soros, a longtime supporter of campaign finance reform, didn't raise a dime for Obama in 2012 and didn't give to the 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."
Much More: Meet the New George Soros | Mother Jones, By Andy Kroll
I still consider Soros the master, but it's nice to know Katzenberg is out there.
