When organizers of the effort to bring the Democratic National Convention to L.A. chose to bring billionaire music mogul and DreamWorks SKG principal David Geffen on board as a co-chair more than two years ago, they seemed to hit upon the perfect bridge between Hollywood and the Democrats.

They were clearly hoping that Geffen would unlock the entertainment industry juggernaut and bring Hollywood glitz and money to the convention fund-raising effort.

But it hasn’t turned out that way.

After giving $25,000 in seed money and sending two of his top aides to Washington to lobby on behalf of L.A.’s convention bid two years ago, Geffen has not given any more of his own money, nor has he raised significant amounts of funds for the convention host committee.

In fact, entertainment interests in general have given less than $1 million toward the $40 million cost of putting on the convention, hardly a huge sum for a town so closely identified with Hollywood.

What’s more, Geffen has been noticeably absent from virtually all of the committee’s meetings and events since that March 1999 day when L.A. was awarded the convention. With the convention just four weeks away, Geffen has no plans to contribute any more time or money to the organizing effort.

“It would be normal to expect a co-chair to do more,” said one high-ranking official with the host committee. “We felt that David, with his great contacts in the entertainment industry, could make a significant contribution to the effort. It didn’t work out that way. People were disappointed about that.”

In some quarters, there is more than disappointment about Geffen’s performance.

“There are definitely some people who are upset that he’s not putting money in,” another high-ranking host committee official said.

The other two billionaires on the host committee, Eli Broad and Ron Burkle, have committed $1.1 million and $1 million, respectively; L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan, whose worth is in the hundreds of millions, has also given $1 million of his own money.

Geffen, who is worth an estimated $2.8 billion, insists through a spokesman that he made it clear almost from the outset that he was focused on raising money to get Democrats elected throughout the country, not to help L.A. put on a convention.

“He was asked to join this effort as a favor to Mayor Riordan, to help bring the convention to L.A.,” said Geffen spokesman Andy Spahn. “We made it clear we would focus on fund-raising for the Democratic National Committee and the Vice President, and that is indeed where we have put our efforts.”

Geffen himself declined to comment for this story.

Until last month, Geffen’s lack of participation would have merited little more than a footnote in the convention fund-raising story. But that changed in mid-June, when the host committee faced a $4 million shortfall as costs rose beyond the $35 million it had committed to raising.

Suddenly, after two years of talk about how L.A. was going to follow the model of the 1984 Olympic Games and raise all the convention funds from the private sector, the host committee had to seek $4 million in taxpayer money from the L.A. City Council.

The request for public funds opened deep divisions among city leaders and paved the way for Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg to use her deciding vote to push for an official protest site at Pershing Square. That in turn touched off a whole new crisis, with the council eventually discarding the proposed protest site.

Yet that trip to City Hall by convention organizers could have been avoided or the amount sought reduced had Geffen stepped up to the plate, observers and critics say. Even if he didn’t want to put in his own money, he could have at least agreed to put on a convention fund-raiser like the one that helped raise $2.8 million last month for the Democratic National Committee.

“One event in one night could have closed much of that $4 million gap,” said Hal Dash, president of Cerrell Associates, an L.A.-based public relations and lobbying firm with longstanding ties to the Democrats. “Geffen has such enormous reach in the music industry and with DreamWorks, it would have been no trouble to put on such an event.”

Hollywood no-shows

But Geffen hasn’t tapped into his contacts in the entertainment industry, and it appears that no one else has stepped into the breach to bring in Hollywood dollars. In fact, there are no entertainment industry companies or executives in the top ranks of contributors of $250,000 or more. The industry’s three top givers Fox Entertainment Group, Warner Bros. President Alan Horn, and TV/film producer Haim Saban each gave between $100,000 and $250,000.

“The entertainment industry is definitely under-represented,” said a high-ranking official connected with the convention effort.

In some ways, that isn’t surprising. Hollywood has traditionally focused more of its attention on national and international causes and has often been chastised for neglecting its own back yard.

But right from the start, organizers of the effort to bring the Democratic National Convention to L.A. sought to change that. In fact, it was one of those organizers, public relations executive Lucy McCoy president of L.A. Convention 2000 through March of this year who initially suggested bringing Geffen on board, sources say.

McCoy could not be reached for comment on that selection. But sources said her suggestion was seconded at the time by the other chief organizers SunAmerica Inc. Chairman Eli Broad, Freeman Spogli & Co. partner and mayoral adviser William Wardlaw, and Mayor Riordan. And it was Riordan who actually contacted Geffen and asked him to join the effort.

Through a spokesman, Riordan last week said Geffen fulfilled his obligations to the host committee.

“Mr. Geffen played a critical role in bringing the Democratic National Convention to Los Angeles,” mayoral spokesman Peter Hidalgo said. “He (Geffen) completed his tasks and assignments admirably. There is absolutely no ill will toward Mr. Geffen on the part of the mayor.”

Immediately upon joining what was then known as the bid committee, Geffen contributed $25,000 in seed money, which was spent on preparing the bid. It did not count toward the $35.3 million the host committee was contractually obligated to raise to actually put on the convention.

In late 1998, Geffen also sent two of his top aides, Spahn and political point person Wendy Gruel, on a convention-bid lobbying trip to Washington along with Broad, Wardlaw and Riordan. But Spahn said that even at that time, Geffen clearly outlined the degree to which he was willing to be involved.

“From day one, our participation was clearly defined. We were to help bring the convention to L.A. That was all,” Spahn said.

In fact, he added, Geffen’s position was that the city should provide the bulk of the funding for the convention, as virtually every other city had done for past political conventions.

High hopes

Still, the other convention organizers were clearly hoping he would change his mind and give more, either in the form of his own money or through his fund-raising prowess. And that was one reason why they offered him one of the three original co-chair positions. Such a post carries with it implicitly if not explicitly a commitment to raise funds and help pull off the event.

So when it became clear in the ensuing months that Geffen wasn’t going to contribute more, why was he kept on as co-chair?

Quite simply, dropping one of the three original co-chairs would have created more problems not the least of which would have been numerous press accounts of how the convention effort was faltering. “You just don’t drop a co-chair. It isn’t done,” said one host committee official.

Of course, the negative publicity came anyway when the host committee hit a dry patch in its fund-raising efforts last winter. That prompted U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein to ask Riordan to take a more prominent role, which he did. He installed his trusted press aide Noelia Rodriguez as the new chief executive, replacing Lucy McCoy. The fund-raising picked up, and the effort was back on track, until additional expenses pushed the bar $5 million higher.

It was during the winter fund-raising crisis, observers say, that convention organizers realized they could not turn to Geffen to help bail them out.

“After that point, people didn’t even bother to go to him,” one official said. “People knew what the answer would be in advance.”