Five-figure cheques poured into his coffers bearing such blue-chip names as Hanks, Clooney, and Spielberg. By this stage in the last election cycle, the entertainment industry’s hearts, minds and wallets were already won.

Four years later? Not so much. When they enter the polling booths, the stars and the power brokers who run this town will still put their crosses against his name. But the sense of warm, fuzzy optimism that characterised his last election has more or less vanished.

Nowhere was the disillusionment more keenly felt than at the Beverly Wilshire hotel last night, as liberal Hollywood gathered for an exercise in champagne socialism. People for the American Way (PFAW) – perhaps the mostinfluential advocacy organisation in the US – planned to celebrate its 30th birthday in style, with the cost of a table at between £3,200 and £64,000.

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