The maniacally in-your-face character of agent Ari Gold on "Entourage" is modeled on Ari Emanuel, who represents Steve Tompkins and Mark Wahlberg, executive producers of the show. In real life, Ari Emanuel is fast becoming a political networking force in Los Angeles, issuing his clients and partners invitations to fund-raising events, including one for Rahm himself and for his House campaign committee.
Suddenly, I like Ari Gold so much more. This piece provided some depressing news regarding fundraising. The first, from a Hollywood donor perspective:
Donors felt tapped out and depressed after what they regarded as Sen. John Kerry's badly run 2004 campaign. The mood changed after the Democrats' congressional prospects improved, and some fund-raisers developed a novel, typically self-doubting pitch for selling into a down market. It goes this way, explains a screenwriter who declined to speak on the record for fear of angering big machers such as Ari Emanuel: "Hillary Clinton is going to be nominated in 2008, John McCain is going to be president, so the House is our only chance to get in the game."
That's right. We already know 2 years out that we're going to lose the presidency, yet again, so please donate to us optimists at the DCCC.
The other bad news is for my fellow Louisvillians who have been pinning their hopes on LEO owner John Yarmuth's campaign to unseat Republican Congresswoman Ann Northup:
(Rahm Emanuel) and his team considered Yarmuth's case. The district is a tough one to win, even though Kerry carried it in 2004. Yarmuth owned a local magazine in which he published articles that might cause controversy. ("Rahm had read all of those articles before last December, when I first met him," Yarmuth says.) Perhaps most important, Yarmuth is independently wealthy. Scorn does not begin to describe Emanuel's response to the idea, as he put it, "of giving money to a multimillionaire." Yarmuth was not invited to join the entourage.
Let's hope John's willing to open up his wallet some more.
