Power shifts to those who write giant checks, rather than collect many smaller ones.
In the wide-open, Wild West world of political fundraising spawned by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, a once-bright liberal star has dimmed a bit in the current presidential election cycle: The Hollywood bundler.
In the 1990s, a donor who rounded up, say, $50,000 in hard-money contributions from like-minded friends, or gave $100,000 of his or her own money to the Democratic National Committee ranked as a big player – and got a front-row seat – in Democratic politics.
In the gilded age of deep-pocketed conservative donors like Sheldon Adelson, Foster Friess and the Koch brothers – who can afford to give millions to super PACs backing a single candidate, if they choose – that’s no longer true, as some longtime donors active in Hollywood and New York now acknowledge.
To compete with her GOP rivals, Hillary Clinton will have to tap Democratic-friendly billionaires like George Soros, Tom Steyer and even Michael Bloomberg in the crunch of the general election campaign. Even celebrity-studded galas and concerts will presumably lose some of their allure.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/hollywood-bundlers-are-losing-the-spotlight-117565.html#ixzz3Z6Xh9zAK
bloomberg Republican as they come.
