Apparently Jennifer Aniston bores them. They don't bat an eye at Ben Stiller or Eddie Murphy. But when Barack Obama — Illinois junior senator and Hollywood primary heavyweight — appears in the ballroom of the Beverly Hilton hotel, the entertainment elite turn and gawk at the man they may cast as president. With hands and camera phones outstretched, the 300 studio sultans, actors, and producers summoned by DreamWorks hosts Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen scrum around Obama for their $2,300-a-pop photo op. The senator's stage direction is simple: tractor-beam eye contact; Oval Office handshake; plaster-of-Paris smile. By evening's end, like a televangelist on methamphetamine, Obama has raked in more than $1.3 million. "A sitting president comes through and raises this kind of money, not a first-term senator just launching his campaign," An Inconvenient Truth producer Lawrence Bender tells me, the actress Joy Bryant at his side. Geffen jokes that they haven't decided what to pay the star: "We'll give at least $300,000 of it to the senator's campaign."

Pause the laugh track, because Obama is going to need every penny and then some. Candidates on both sides are expected to raise $100 million by the end of the year — $275,000 a day — just to keep up with the pantsuited Hillary Clinton behemoth, which began the race with $15 million from her Senate war chest. The actual nominees will each hit $500 million by Election Day — roughly twice as much as George W. Bush raised in '04 and 10 times Bill Clinton in '96. Hillary has set not only the scope but the pace, presumptuously asking her supporters to max out ASAP at $4,600 ($2,300 for the primary, $2,300 for the general).

Up close, the maw of the money machine can seem a weird place. (Having purchased a ticket in order to bypass Obama's press sentries, I am the only reporter, it appears, who is free to roam the event.) When Morgan Freeman comes over to greet Obama, the senator begins bowing down both hands in worship. "This guy was president before I was," says Obama, referring to Freeman's turn in Deep Impact and, clearly, getting a little ahead of his own bio. Next, a nod to Bruce Almighty: "This guy was God before I was." (Okay, more than a little ahead.) But Freeman is eating it up. Leaning in, he tells the senator to win it. "I will," Obama replies. "That's why I'm running."