Hugh Hefner--The Human Events interview

Loretta Sanchez and Jesse Jackson Apologized to `Hef '

"Confusion on the part of Al Gore and his campaign and a desire to separate themselves from the Clinton scandals" is what led the Democratic Party leadership to pressure Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D.-Calif.) into canceling a fundraising event at the Playboy Mansion during last week's Democratic National Convention.

That is what lifelong Democrat Hugh Hefner has concluded. In an interview with HuMAN EVENTS, Hefner, founder and publisher of Playboy magazine and owner of the Playboy Mansion, blasted his party's leadership for "behaving like the right wing" in leaning on Sanchez to change the locale of her long-planned event.

Recalling his lengthy record as a major Democratic contributor who has opened his home to numerous Democratic candidates and liberal causes, the 74-year-old Playboy potentate observed that he and the mansion "have never been a source of controversy until this moment, so there had to be other variables."

Maximum for Democrats

Indeed, both Hefner and his daughter, Christie HefnerPlayboy's CEO who is married to prominent Chicago Democratic politician Bill Marovitz-have donated more than $60,000 to Democratic candidates nationally and are financial boosters of the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Among the Democratic candidates receiving the maximum legal contribution of $1,000 from Christie Hefner this year are Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan, who is trying to oust Republican Sen: John Ashcroft; Michigan Rep. Debbie Stabenow, who is challenging Sen. Spence Abraham; and Hillary Clinton, who is running for the open Senate seat in New York.

Miss Hefner gave Mrs. Clinton the maximum contribution of $1,000 for her unopposed primary campaign, and then donated another maximum $1,000 contribution for her general election campaign.

Federal Election Commission reports show that Christie Hefner has made separate contributions of $1,250 each to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Since 1997, she has made annual contributions ranging from $500 to $2,500 to the liberal, pro-abortion EMILY's List political action committee.

Hugh Hefner is a big backer of Al Gore-who wanted Sanchez's Playboy Mansion fundraiser cancelled. In 1998, Hefner gave the maximum contribution of $5,000 to the Vice President's Leadership '98 political action committee. In 1999, he gave the maximum of $1,000 to Gore's presidential campaign. He has also contributed $5,000 to the Democratic National Committee in 1998 and another $5,000 in 2000.

In 1998-99, Hefner gave $21,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

`And I've opened up the mansion here to raise money for several Democratic candidates and office-holders," Hefner said. "Not because I ask them if I might host an event, but they ask me."

As examples, the publisher cited former California Gov. Jerry Brown, former California Democratic Chairman and present "Crossfire" co-host Bill Press, and late Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, for whom Hefner raised money going back to Bradley's first unsuccessful mayoral bid in 1969 against conservative Sam Yorty.

"We even flew [the late Chicago Mayor] Harold Washington out here for an event during the 1980s;' he said. Hefner also pointed out that he has hosted events for

many "worthwhile causes," including the civil rights movement. "The seed money for Jesse Jackson's Operation PUSH was raised at a party in my Chicago home in the 1970s and we also helped Martin Luther King," said Hefner, who recalled how King's final interview before his assassination in 1968 was with Playboy. (The interview was published posthumously.)

"And you know something," chuckled Hefner, "even after this flap, even after [DNC Chairman] Joe Andrew and [DCCC Chairman] Patrick Kennedy bludgeoned Loretta Sanchez into canceling her event at the mansion, I'm still getting solicitations from Democrats in the mail. Just the other day, I got a mailing with a large, color photo of Al Gore asking me for more money."

After all the controversy, is Hefner fed up with Gore and the Democrats? "No, not at all;' he said. "You have to consider things such as the policies that come with a President, particularly related to who will be sitting on the Supreme Court. One has certain choices. I have backed AI Gore and continue to do so and will vote for him. I was also pleased with the belated notion that a Jew is appropriate for national office and I would like to see continuity of what we have now."

A strong supporter of Bill Clinton "from the beginning," Hefner said that he had met the lameduck President for the first time only "six months ago at the Imperial Hotel here in Los Angeles. He was raising money for something and had a small breakfast. We had a picture taken together."

But Hefner, a loyal Democrat since his childhood in Depression-era Nebraska ("FDR became my hero"), voiced some discomfort about his party's recent feints to the right-especially its recent convention-time talk of family values, which led to the cancellation of the Playboy Mansion fundraiser. "'This `Moral Majority' type of tension gives me pause," he said. "I realize they are taking things from the Republicans, but all of this code language they use related to the family view bothers me. It's like talking about the impact of rock music on society in campaign speeches-all the height of hypocrisy."