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Michelle Obama rakes in $1M at Hollywood fundraiser

February 3, 2012

First lady Michelle Obama raised nearly $1 million for her husband’s re-election campaign at a Hollywood fundraiser Tuesday.

If relations between Hollywood and Washington, D.C. have soured because of the failure of SOPA, it didn’t show Tuesday evening. About 135 entertainment executives and artists attended the soiree, held at the Beverly Hills home of Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer at Netflix.

Among the guests were Quincy Jones, Harvey Weinstein and Berry Gordy, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

From the Huffington Post Los Angeles:

The donation-raising power of a single night with Hollywood power players is the reason why presidential campaigners from both parties regularly visit our "golden" political donor state. President Obama had made seven trips to California by the end of September 2011, followed by another in October and November. And, the President and First Lady are scheduled to return to Southern California and the Bay Area February 15 and 16.

In 2011, California gave more in political donations than any other state, excluding Texas, New York and Washington, D.C., according yesterday's filings cited by California Watch. And the money is coming in large--$12 million from California in 2011--since the U.S. Supreme Court's 2009 Citizen's United ruling that wealthy individuals and organizations can make unlimited political donations.

Who is getting the money? As California Watch points out, the two biggest California donors were DreamWorks executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, who gave $2 million to Obama, and former Univision CEO Jerry Perenchio, who gave $2 million to American Crossroads, a conservative fundraising group led by Karl Rove. A list of the top contributors to all presidential candidates, including Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams, is available by The New York Times here.