No-Show Joe: Strikes Turn L.A. Into Dems Fundraising Desert
The president has avoided Hollywood and its coffers for months at a critical moment
Over the past several election cycles, Christy Callahan and her husband, producer Jon Glickman, have hosted close to 50 political fundraisers at their Hancock Park home in Los Angeles. A parade of Democratic politicians from across the country — vice-president Kamala Harris, Senators Cory Booker, Raphael Warnock, Jon Osoff and representatives Maxwell Frost and Eric Swalwell to name but a few — have all made their respective stump speeches in the couple’s backyard to an array of guests that usually included executives and creatives from the entertainment industry. In recent months, however, it’s been crickets. “It feels weird sending out a fundraising invitation when so many people are suffering,” says Callahan. “If the strike hadn’t happened, I would’ve had more things over the summer. But it just felt tone deaf to me.”
Also, it doesn’t help when the most high-profile Democrat in the world — the president himself — is, thanks to the strikes, suddenly allergic to L.A.