In the interest of drumming up maximal funds—or "transparency"—Barack Obama‘s Presidential Inauguration Committee has released a chart (to be updated in real time) listing the names, employers, cities, and contributions of everyone who donates money to help make January 20 the best inauguration ever. The PIC won’t be accepting any more than $50,000 per person, so it’s not a good venue for show-offs, but we still spotted a lot of familiar names.
Out in Los Angeles, Steven Spielberg, Halle Berry, Jamie Foxx, Samuel L. Jackson, Sharon Stone, Bradley Whitford, Tom Hanks, Jamie Lee Curtis, Magic Johnson, Robert Zemeckis, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Berry Gordy and director-producer Reginald Hudlin have all pitched in. From New York, we have Cynthia Brill and Patricia Duff, who each gave $25,000. Ms. Duff’s ex, Ron Perelman, gave $50,000, as did Def Jam executive Antonio Reid, Laurance Rockefeller Jr. and his wife, Wendy, Citigroup’s Ray McGuire, Sally Minard, Howard Milstein (two family members also donated the maximum amount), and five people with the last name Soros (including, of course, George).
Contributors will receive tickets to the ceremony and, more important, access to official balls and events. Whether the $500 folk will be attending the same parties as the $50,000 crowd is unclear, but it seems, shall we say, unlikely.
