Let the bet hedging begin
DAVID GEFFEN offered sage advice to his Hollywood friends when it came to deciding whom to support in this year's presidential election: Follow your heart.
But sometimes the heart sends mixed messages. Take Jon Peters,for example. The "Superman Returns" producer, former Sony Pictures chairman and onetime Barbra Streisand boyfriend is heading off to New York to work on his memoirs with Judith Regan.And while Peters is there, he plans to pay a visit to New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who is said to be exploring the possibility of entering the 2008 presidential race as an independent -- sort of like a Ralph Nader but with former presidential candidate Mitt Romney's money.
"David Geffen is one of the smartest men I know, and he tells me [Sen. Barack] Obama is the next president," Peters said. "But I think once you incorporate the super delegates, the Democratic primary is too close to call.
"Should [Sen. Hillary Rodham] Clinton emerge as the nominee, she will hold her own in Hollywood, but you will see a number of Hollywood players shift to [Sen. John] McCain and Mayor Bloomberg, should he toss his hat into the ring," he said, adding, "Personally, I have received calls from both camps."
Peters -- who, by the way, previously has given to the presidential campaigns of Michael S. Dukakis, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush -- knows better than most how to hedge a bet, and there may be a lot of that west of La Brea and south of Mulholland in the weeks ahead.
Hollywood came out of Super Tuesday the way the parties did: fractured, a little dazed and slightly confused.
The industry's partisans and activists had been looking for the guidance of a little audience research. They wanted voters to give them feedback on how their candidates were playing. But the delegate counts have proved harder to understand than Nielsen ratings.
Hollywood's biggest political fundraisers are back where they started: hitting friends up for donations and endorsements. It could get positively Darwinian. Call it survival of the biggest "Q" number.
Peters aside -- and barring a late surge by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas)-- what this means is that McCain, Clinton and Obama will have to spend nearly as much time courting Hollywood (and its money) as they will campaigning for the Texas primary. After all, they don't call Tinseltown the ATM of U.S. politics for nothing.
