Elizabeth Warren Headshot - P 2011
Alex Wong/Getty ImagesMassachusetts senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren is Democratic Hollywood’s new “It girl,” a status that will be ratified Tuesday, Nov. 1 when the party’s local elder statesman, Norman Lear, and his wife Lynn host a fundraiser for the Harvard Law professor and consumer advocate, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
The event’s cohosts include a cross section of the Democrats’ industry reliables, including Barbra Streisand, Steve Bing, Rhea Perlman, Danny DeVito, Marge Tabankin, Hans Zimmer and Lorraine and Sid Sheinberg. Donations are scaled from $1,000 to $5,000 with organizers anticipating a large crowd gathering for the fundraiser the Lear estate.
Warren is in a battle to take Ted Kennedy‘s old Massachusetts Senate seat from Republican Scott Brown, one of the Tea Party’s first successful candidates.
Industry heavyweights also have been energized by Warren’s abilities on the stump — a video of at least one of her campaign speeches has gone viral on YouTube. Her conduct as President Obama’s overseer of the bank bailout, won high marks, as did her fierce advocacy of a new federal agency for consumer protection.
As a candidate and legal scholar, she’s an advocate for middle- and working-class families, a message Democratic Hollywood has been desperate to hear. In a recent email to the influential Politico website, Streisand, who already has made contributions to Warren’s campaign, wrote, “In the last several years, there has been one new, consistent and strong voice that has broken through the oftentimes murky and ineffectual cacophony about the economic problems facing our nation.”
Hollywood’s support is often a mixed blessing, however. Brown has sharply criticized Warren, who according to the Washington Post has raised about 70 percent of her money outside of Massachusetts, as the candidate of elite and celebrity interests.
