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Los Angeles: Hollywood stars have thrown their support and abundant cash behind US presidential candidate Barack Obama, whose historic White House bid could easily become the stuff of movies.
The fundraising gala on Tuesday in Los Angeles marked a decided push by Obama to shore up private funding for his race against Republican John McCain roughly a week after the Democrat backtracked on a promise to use public money for his presidential race.
That decision leaves the Illinois senator, who has already shattered fundraising records by raising US$287 million by the end of May, free to raise and spend hundreds of millions of dollars for the general election.
Obama, the son of a Kenyan father and a mother from Kansas, rose from near-obscurity in a matter of years to topple Hillary Rodham Clinton, who had once appeared to b ethe all-but-certain Democratic nominee, and could now become the first black US president.
His story resonates in the entertainment industry, which has typically voted Democratic.
The party's candidates pocketed around 80 per cent of the television, movie and music businesses campaign contributions during the primary season. Clinton's withdrawal from the race all but guarantees that Obama will be the recipient of that largesse.
The event - in which top tickets went for more than US$30,000 - drew top-tier celebrities like actors Don Cheadle, Dennis Quaid and boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard.
Also in attendance was Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am, who created two music videos for Obama during the primary season - including one called "Yes We Can" that set music to clips from his speeches and became an Internet sensation.
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