Industry weighs choices for guv

When Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced on CNN this week that he wouldn’t seek the California Democratic gubernatorial nomination, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom was attending a Bay Area event with First Ladies Michelle Obama and Maria Shriver.

In less than an hour, Newsom -- the Dems’ only declared candidate -- was in the car and working the phones, calling major Hollywood donors and activists who’d been waiting to see what the L.A. mayor would to do.

“Villaraigosa bowing out is a huge strategic opportunity for Newsom in terms of Hollywood donors,” said political consultant Kristina Schake, who knows her way around the Beverly Hills-Brentwood Park-Malibu fundraising circuit. (Call it the Dems’ “axis of cash.”) “Without our mayor in the race, Newsom now has the chance to make his case to the considerable amount of Hollywood donors who had not committed yet because of Villaraigosa. This is Newsom’s chance to get the meetings.”

The telegenic San Francisco mayor first gained national and statewide attention for his early support of gay marriage, likely to be one of the coming campaign’s major issues. Newsom has already had what most people in the industry would regard as top-drawer meetings. Last week, super agent and Endeavor-William Morris honcho Ari Emanuel (brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel) was one of the hosts at an elite Newsom fund-raising event. Other hosts included longtime activists Michele and Rob Reiner, Ben Silverman, Jamie Lynton, Craig and Lynn Jacobson, Eric Paquette, George Heller, Debbie Liebling and Andrew Bohn.

Newsom’s candidacy also got a boost when he was introduced to agents at ICM headquarters by the agency’s president, Chris Silbermann, an early supporter of Barack Obama.

Without Villaraigosa in the race, Schake points out, Jerry Brown, the former governor-turned-state attorney general, “becomes the most recognizable candidate in L.A. [Brown has not announced his intention to run for governor.] But while Brown is a known quantity, Newsom brings something new, which could appeal to those who stayed out of the race while Villaraigosa was weighing his options. Brown goes way back in Hollywood, but it’s clear from these early events that Newsom already is being well received.”

In fact, while Brown is seen nowadays as a Bay Area pol, like Newsom, because of his service as Oakland’s mayor, his political roots in Los Angeles -- which means Hollywood -- go deep . . . and, no, that isn’t because he once dated Linda Ronstadt.) Brown first won elective office as a member of the L.A. Community College Board and ran for governor while living in a hilltop home in Laurel Canyon.

It’s widely assumed that the former two-term governor would enjoy wide support in the state’s African American and Latino communities, where he has long-standing ties that extend back to his support of civil rights, particularly of Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers. Establishing the Agricultural Labor Relations Board was one of Brown’s signature achievements as a first-term governor. And even though Newsom has won many gay and lesbian backers for his cutting-edge support of marriage equality, Brown holds identical views. Many older activists will recall that he was the first statewide officeholder to publicly embrace the gay rights cause.

As Schake points out, Brown named openly gay West Hollywood lawyer Sheldon Andelson, a beloved figure in the local gay community, to the UC Board of Regents and at the time took a considerable amount of flak for it.

Kerman Maddox, L.A.’s most experienced African American political strategist, thinks “Villaraigosa would have done fantastic in Hollywood with his magnetic personality, but his absence gives both Brown and Newsom a real opportunity.” Maddox says he expects both candidates to “do well with the Hollywood crowd. It will be interesting to see how their candidacies play with the different generations in Hollywood.”

In fact, you already can see the beginning of such a split, much as you could between Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton supporters in the early stages of the last general election.

While the San Francisco mayor clearly enjoys support among the current crop of uber-agents, Brown is collecting impressive donations from what might be called “Old Hollywood,” including $13,000 from Eagles stalwart Don Henley and $12,000 from Edith Wasserman, widow of MCA co-founder Lew, the legendary industry power broker.

Longtime L.A. and Hollywood advisor and activist Donna Bojarsky predicts “a little Gavin boomlet” but doesn’t think “it’ll stick over time, as it becomes clear that he’s really not terribly electable statewide.”

Bojarsky is one of those who believe black and Latino Californians ultimately “will go with Jerry, and even some older gays who remember Jerry’s early and pivotal support of gay rights.”

Hollywood’s Democrats love a choice, and they love to be courted. It looks like the governor race is shaping up as a decision between the longtime leading man with proven box office and a fresh face with niche appeal -- sounds a bit like a summer release roster.

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tina.daunt@latimes.com