Cliché Watch

Oscar Nominees Love Democrats

Erik Hayden 172 Views Feb 25, 2011

Given the longstanding Democratic leanings of Hollywood, it's not much of a surprise that this year's crop of Oscar nominees support Democratic candidates, party committees and PACs, when they make political donations. The Center for Responsive Politics' annual look at the partisan giving among nominees in the major categories found that 99 percent of donations went to Democrats. But what of that other 1 percent? The Republican Oscar donors winners are...

A couple of Social Network producers:

A $7,500 contribution in 2004 from producer Michael De Luca of "The Social Network" to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, as well as a $1,000 gift to Republican Matt Fong from Michael Medavoy, producer of "'The Social Network."

In dollars: out of the $1.3 million contributed by this year's crop of Oscar nominees since 1990, more than $1.24 million was given to Democrats. The CRP broke down each category into biggest donors out of the Oscar nominees. The biggest contributors?

Best Actor: Jeff Bridges wins with $68,000. $20,000 of which went to his local representative Lois Capps.

Best Actress: Annette Bening ($26,600) edged out Nicole Kidman ($25,500). Bening has a habit of donating to Ralph Nader. Once for $2,000 in 2000 and again for $2,300 in 2008.

Best Supporting Actor: Mark Ruffalo wins with $13,000, he was the only one who donated anything in his category. Some of the funds went to "long-shot" candidates Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel.

Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo wins with $500, which went evenly to John Kerry in 2004 and Russ Feingold. She won by default in her category also.

Best Director: David Fincher donated $7,100, he contributed $2,300 to Barack Obama in 2008.

[h/t: Wilshire and Washington]

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Erik Hayden