Tales from the Trail

First it was dinner with Barack. Then it was the chance to have dinner with President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama. The campaign has also added the chance to dine with the president and Vice President Joe Biden to the mix in its perennial “Dinner with Barack” fundraising scheme.

But now it’s offering the chance to meet someone who might make some earlier supporters sorry they didn’t wait to enter the campaign’s fund-raising lottery — Hollywood star George Clooney.

The Obama campaign sent out an email today telling supporters that if they donate $3 “or whatever you can,” they will enter a drawing to win one of two chances to attend a fundraiser Clooney is holding at his home in Los Angeles in May.

“If you donate $3 or whatever you can today, you’ll be doing your part to support the campaign, and be automatically entered to join them in Los Angeles,” the email from Julianna Smoot, deputy campaign manager for Obama for America, said.

“If you ask me, this is far too good to pass up.”

Most people at the event will have paid $35,800 — funds going to the Obama re-election campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

In a presidential election year, the Oscar statuettes are not the only gold-plated figures at Hollywood’s annual Academy Awards ceremony. The audience on Sunday will be sprinkled with big political donors — at least to Democrats.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, head of DreamWorks Animation, which has three films up for awards, is a top bundler for President Obama who has donated $4 million in national and state-level races, according to The Sunlight Foundation, which analyzed data about filmdom donations. Katzenberg gave half that total – $2 million – to Priorities USA Action, a pro-Obama Super PAC.

Steven Spielberg, who produced the best picture nominee “War Horse,” has spent $1.6 million in donations to Democratic state and federal candidates and committees, including Obama, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and California Governor Jerry Brown, Sunlight said.

The  normally buzzing White House press gallery came to a halt on Tuesday as film star George Clooney visited in hopes that his megawatt star power would draw mainstream media attention to  Sudan,  and help prompt President Barack Obama and other world leaders to use “robust diplomacy” to prevent violence in the African nation before a crucial election on Jan. 9.

“Right now, at this moment there’s an opportunity here to negotiate this, to negotiate a peace treaty,” Clooney told reporters at the White House after meeting with President Barack Obama. “It’s complicated and it’s difficult and it means negotiating with people who you don’t necessarily like and you don’t necessarily get along with. This administration seems committed to it and we have to focus on that right now.”

Clooney said activists would like to see the global community pressure the government in Khartoum before the election three months from now.  “We’d like to see the international community stiffen up the sanctions that we’ve been using… There’s a lot of money out there that those guys are holding.”

The tale of John Edwards'  personal and political downfall will be coming to a movie theater near you.

But who will play the disgraced politician?

Aaron Sorkin, best known for penning the hit White House drama series "The West Wing" has bought the rights to the book penned by Andrew Young -- the former aide to the Democratic presidential hopeful throughout his affair with Rielle Hunter.

Sorkin described  Young's  book "The Politician: An Insider's Account of John Edwards' Pursuit of the Presidency and the Scandal That Brought Him Down" as a "first-hand account of an extraordinary story filled with motivations, decisions and consequences that would have lit Shakespeare up."

It’s Oscar nomination day, which means some in snow-covered Washington DC — Hollywood for ugly people, if you believe the old saying — are daydreaming about what it would be like to make a blockbuster film. “Avatar” seems to have the inside track in this year’s Academy Award race, but isn’t there an old classic movie ripe for a Washington-style remake?

How about “Meet John Doe”? It’s a Frank Capra morality piece made in 1941, where a soda jerk can speak basic truth and a rail-riding hobo is played by Gary Cooper, the George Clooney of his day. Everybody’s scrounging for a job and a buck, they’re laying off the old pros at the local newspaper and a cigar-chomping oil magnate wants to get into politics. Barbara Stanwyck plays a hard-driving columnist who fakes a letter from a mythical “John Doe” who says he’s going to leap off the city hall roof on Christmas Eve to protest widespread corruption and the state of the world in general.

But that’s all background. What makes it made-to-order for a 2010 remake is what happens when Gary Cooper a.k.a. “John Doe” speaks to a big gathering, reading remarks written by the columnist, who’s now in cahoots with the oil magnate: the crowd loves him so much they go out and form grassroots John Doe Clubs, just to be neighborly. No politicians allowed. They’re not partisan, they just want to make things a little better.