Lara Bergthold, Clark's political director and herself an experienced player in Hollywood fundraising, said that two things are driving support for the general among industry insiders. "One is the perception that he's the best candidate to defeat Bush," said Bergthold, who has done consulting work for Salon in the past. "Two is that he generates an excitement in that community that they haven't felt with other candidates. He's an outsider, somebody who has an unusual and nontraditional résumé, and someone who is willing to speak truth to power."

Of course, not everyone in Hollywood has written a check for Wes Clark immediately upon meeting him. A few weeks before announcing his candidacy, Clark stopped at Dreamworks for lunch with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg. "He was very articulate," said Dreamworks executive Andy Spahn, who advises the Dreamworks founders on political issues and attended the lunch with Clark. "He was well-versed in the issues -- particularly foreign policy -- and seemed to have a very inclusive and/or progressive set of values that he applied to a wide range of issues."

Still, neither Spielberg nor Katzenberg nor their Dreamworks partner, Democratic fundraising powerhouse David Geffen, has endorsed Clark or anyone else. Katzenberg gave $2,000 to John Edwards in the spring, but two grand in Hollywood does not an endorsement make. Neither Spielberg nor Geffen has given anything to any of the contenders yet.

"We still feel that it's early and there's no need to jump in at this point," Spahn said. "We have relationships with many of the candidates, and we're prepared to watch the race unfold."

The Dreamworks trio are among the biggest guns still holding their powder -- Geffen alone raised between $15 million and $20 million for Democrats during the Clinton years -- but they aren't the only ones. A lot of Hollywood's heaviest hitters are waiting for the Democratic race to sort itself out, said Margery Tabankin, the former executive director of the Hollywood Women's Political Committee who now advises Streisand and a number of other influential entertainment industry figures on political matters. Among those who are either spreading contributions among candidates or keeping their wallets closed for now: Haim "Power Rangers" Saban, Westwood One chairman Norm Pattiz, and Ron Burkle, an investment banker and grocery-store gazillionaire who moves in Hollywood circles.

Major contributors and fundraisers like these make the entertainment industry a key part of the national political fundraising system. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that analyzes political contributions, the movie, music and television industries have contributed nearly $150 million in federal races since the 1990 election cycle. That total places the entertainment industry eighth on the list of 100 "industries" tracked by the Center for Responsive Politics.

While most of the other top-20 contributing industries lean Republican or split their dollars between the parties, the entertainment industry -- like lawyers and labor unions -- tilts strongly toward Democrats. Over the years, Democrats have received 69 percent of the entertainment industry's contributions; the oil and gas industry, by contrast, has given 74 percent of its contributions to Republicans, and even more now that one of its own is running for reelection.

The entertainment industry provided unprecedented support for Bill Clinton, giving Democrats more than $22 million to spend in federal races in 1992 and 1996. Hollywood fell in line -- with even more money but a little less enthusiasm -- for Al Gore and Joe Lieberman in 2000. Gore lacked Clinton's starry charisma and had a wife who had railed against rock 'n' roll lyrics she deemed offensive. And Lieberman had spent so much of his time blasting Hollywood for forcing sex and violence on kids that the industry had little stomach for him as a vice presidential candidate.

"A lot of people in the industry put in a lot of money and time working for Gore-Lieberman," said a Hollywood political advisor who worked on the Gore staff. "It was infuriating for them to fly all over the country to help the campaign only to have Lieberman go around demonizing them for destroying our children."

Now that Lieberman is running on his own and, once again, attacking Hollywood, few in the industry are interested in backing his campaign. By Sept. 30, he had collected just $131,000 from the entertainment industry, the least of the major candidates other than the late-entering Clark. When CNN recently listed celebrity contributors in the presidential race, it named only one who lined up with Lieberman: Jerry Stiller, who played George Costanza's Festivus-inventing father on "Seinfeld."

That's in stark contrast to the kind of success Dean has enjoyed in Hollywood. His contributors list is a veritable who's who of the entertainment industry, especially those liberals galvanized and united by their dislike for and distrust of Bush.

Reiner, who has held fundraisers for Dean in California and is stumping for him in Iowa, first met the candidate a decade ago in the course of his work on children's issues. Later, he sat with Dean at a governor's convention in 1997 and talked with him then about the possibility of running for national office someday. "I just liked him so much," Reiner recalls. "He's such a straight shooter. He looks you in the eye, and it's not bullshit. And I thought to myself, Wow, this is so unlike any politician I've ever met."

When Reiner began to think about the 2004 race, he looked at the other candidates in the field and saw more similarities than differences. Dean stood out for his unequivocal opposition to the war in Iraq. "I got the sense that some of these other candidates were making political calculations and thinking, 'This is something I should do because I don't want to be on the wrong side of this issue and I don't want to be seen as weak on national security,'" Reiner said. "Dean is a doctor, and he approached problems in a very practical way. He'll diagnose the situation and say, 'How do we solve this?' instead of making a political calculation."

Clark's supporters in Hollywood -- as they do elsewhere -- whisper that Dean is too hot-headed to be president, that his anger at Bush doesn't play well on TV and won't resonate with more moderate voters in the general election. For his part, Reiner says that Clark's supporters don't understand that having a four-star general as a candidate isn't enough to counteract the Republicans' usual advantage on national defense issues.

Reiner says the other major Democratic candidates are compromised by the fact that they stood with Bush in the run-up to Iraq or waffled on their positions later. "I had a meeting with one of the candidates who promised that he would never agree to go to support without the U.N.," Reiner said. "Then, the next day, I read that he said, 'Regardless of whether the U.N. is being us or not, we should go in anyway.' I want somebody who is going to be straightforward with me. I want to be with somebody I can trust, somebody I can count on."

Earlier in the campaign, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards appeared to be the kind of candidate that could rally the Hollywood troops. He was fresh and fresh-faced, and for 15 minutes, at least, he was everybody's favorite. "Initially, John Edwards came to town and everybody put him on the casting couch and decided, 'Oh my God, this is Bill Clinton,'" said a political advisor to a celebrity who now backs Howard Dean. "He's charming and from the South, and they thought he would be a great candidate. But I'm not aware of any of those people who currently support Edwards now."

Another political advisor -- this one, an early backer of Edwards who now works for several celebrities supporting Clark -- said that Edwards never succeeded in capitalizing on the positive impressions he made early. "Dean really did a good job; he took his early support from Rob Reiner and really turned it into something," the advisor said. "Edwards was given full exposure and money and whatnot, but it just didn't grow the way some of us would have wanted it to."

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