By Jordan Vega · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Richard Horgan on FishbowlLA, May 2012
In mid-May 2012, FishbowlLA covered Zócalo Public Square editor Joe Mathews grumbling about the LA traffic that a George Clooney-hosted Studio City fundraiser for President Obama would cause — a “Starmageddon,” in the framing of the moment. The original FishbowlLA piece tracked the LA-civic-life complaint as a documented small story.
Then
The May 2012 Clooney-Obama fundraiser was one of the highest-profile political-fundraising events of the 2012 presidential cycle — a star-studded dinner at George Clooney’s Studio City home that raised a substantial sum for the Obama re-election campaign. The event drew enormous press attention; it was one of the iconic Hollywood-and-politics moments of the 2012 race.
Joe Mathews — the editor at Zócalo Public Square, the LA-based ideas-and-journalism nonprofit — was, the original FishbowlLA framing noted, not alone in the complaint that the fundraiser would produce yet another needless LA traffic nightmare. The “Starmageddon” framing connected the celebrity-fundraiser-traffic complaint to the broader LA “Carmageddon” vocabulary the city had developed for its recurring traffic-disruption events.
The piece was characteristic of the LA-civic-life texture FishbowlLA periodically captured — the gap between the national-political glamour of a Clooney-Obama fundraiser and the on-the-ground reality of the Angelenos who just had to get home through the resulting gridlock.
Now
Joe Mathews has continued at Zócalo Public Square and as one of the most-cited California-civic-affairs columnists. His “Connecting California” column has continued as a recurring voice on California governance, democracy, and civic life; Zócalo Public Square has continued as one of the durable LA-based ideas-journalism nonprofits, eventually affiliating with Arizona State University.
George Clooney has continued his substantial parallel career as a political fundraiser and Democratic-party figure across the years since 2012 — including, notably, his 2024 involvement in the Biden-campaign cycle. The celebrity-political-fundraiser format the 2012 event exemplified has continued to be a recurring feature of American presidential campaigns.
The broader LA-traffic complaint the 2012 piece captured has remained one of the city’s permanent civic conversations. The “Carmageddon”/“Starmageddon” vocabulary the era developed has continued to be the shorthand for the city’s recurring traffic-disruption events.
The 2012 piece reads now as a small documented moment of LA-civic-life texture — the on-the-ground Angeleno’s-eye-view of a glamorous national-political event, captured by a city that has never stopped grumbling about its traffic.
Original report archived on the Wayback Machine.