SF Chronicle: Hollywood flirting with Obama despite fear of crossing Hillary

[GreenZoneLT]

As she watched a stream of A-list Hollywood actors and movie moguls crowd into the elegant ballroom of the Beverly Hilton Hotel to mingle with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama this week, powerhouse blogger and author Arianna Huffington noted that many in the room were uneasy about being there.

"It's like being married, and suddenly you fall in love. You're a good person, and a loyal person ... you have a history with the Clintons,'' she said. "And you feel like you're cheating.''

If some Democrats have cheating on their minds, it coincides with the rise of Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, who has attracted big crowds and evidenced that elusive quality of political charisma, "something you cannot manufacture,'' Huffington said. "It is priceless -- and we haven't seen it for a long time.''

And that has posed trouble for the old love: Hillary Rodham Clinton, the New York senator, front-runner for the Democratic nomination in 2008 and the wife of former President Bill Clinton.

Hillary Clinton, who is scheduled to attend a lunch fundraiser in San Francisco today, expected in her presidential campaign to tap the same liberal Democratic sources of money in Hollywood and elsewhere that backed her husband's successful bids for the White House. And, Huffington and others say, the Clintons tend to play a style of politics that is all or nothing -- you're my friend or my enemy.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/02/23/MNGCAO9NS71.DTL


There's a good quote at the end, that notes that if Hollywood annointed the Democratic candidate, we'd have nominated Bob Kerrey, Bill Bradley and Howard Dean. Personally, I think this idea that there are only two candidates is nuts; Edwards had a wide lead in the last polls in Iowa and New Hampshire that I've seen.

[dkf]

1. Hillary is beginning to scare me.

Too reminiscent of Bush.

[global1]

3. I Hear You - You're Either With Us Or Against Us......

where have I heard that before?

[Nedsdag]

6. Who says the Clintons aren't royalty?

They're acting like Czar Nicholas and Czarina Alexandra of Russia and we all know what happened to them.

[City Lights]

8. Ya got that right!

Especially after reading MacAuliffe's comments in post #2. :scared:

[BeyondGeography]

2. I suspect even Clinton's supporters are embarrassed by arrogance like this

Terry MacAuliffe: "The message from Team Hillary is: We're ahead, we're going to be the nominee -- and we will remember who our friends are.''

At least they should be.

[Forkboy]

4. Dont bet on it

[blm]

7. And we remember that McAuliffe refused to secure the 2002 and 2004 election process

so that our Democratic voters and candidates could GET their votes counted.

And that Carville was sharing crucial Ohio votecounting information with Matalin at the WH on election night.

Let's talk about loyalty, Terry - YOU were only loyal to the Clintons the entire time you were CHARGED with being loyal to the Democratic PARTY. You did NOTHING to counter the GOPs vote suppressing and purged voter roll tactics and certainly REFUSED pointblank to secure the voting machines BEFORE the voting.

[zbdent]

5. Come now, Hollywood would never attack the Clintons!

Now, on an unrelated note, I'm going to watch the double-feature "Primary Colors" and "Wag the Dog" (which was released during Clinton's presidency, but was supposed to be about Bush ...)

[EFerrari]

9. Barack Obama is the most charming presidential candidate since JFK.

I accidently caught a clip of him handling a question from a reporter during this dust up and he reminded me so strongly of JFK easily and gracefully deflecting a leading question.

No wonder the Clinton camp is having fits.