Celebrity support of the candidates

After nine months of fundraising, the candidates for president in 2008 have already raised about $420 million. This presidential money chase seems to be on track to collect an unprecedented $1 billion total. By some predictions, the eventual nominees will need to raise $500 million apiece to compete--a record sum. Year-end reports are due to the Federal Election Commission by Jan. 31.

The politics and showbusiness have always been strongly connected. The support of the celebrities always came in two ways the financial support and the personal promotional support. In 2004 presidential elections gave the movie, TV and recording industries $33.1 million to federal candidates, which represents an enormous support, but next to the money the celebrities and the entertainment business also promote their candidates trough the media.

For the presidential election 2008 some of the numbers connected with celebrity support are already known and are presented in an article on CNN web site
( http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/13/celebrity.donors.ap/index.html )

Celebrities like Michael Douglas, Sean Penn, Paul Newman, Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg, Mary Steenburgen, Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith, Chris Rock, Sidney Poitier and Branford Marsalis, Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy, Isaiah Washington, Tyra Banks, Morgan Freeman, Halle Berry, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker,George Clooney, Ed Norton, Jennifer Aniston, Zach Braff, John Cleese, Leonard Nimoy, Brooke Shields, Harry Connick Jr., Hill Harper and Rob Reiner have financially supported the campaigns of one or more Democratic candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich. (if you want to see more precise information on which selebrity supports whom see the folowing article:http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-et-cause11jan11,0,7865509.story?coll=la-politics-campaign ).

For the Republican candidates John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee support and endorsements were given by Pat Boone, Lorne Michaels, Chuck Norris, Kelsey Grammer, Adam Sandler and Ben Stein.

Most of the celebrities gave up to $4.600 dollars per campaign in support of the candidates but were not as generous with public endorsements. Most of the celebrities have namely still not endorsed any of the candidates. What is clearly visible from the two lists is that also in this election the entertainment world is more strongly supporting the Democratic candidates.