Over a month back Hollywood tycoon David Geffen held a fundraiser for Barrack Obama and aimed some sharp words at Hillary Clinton, leading many to speculate that the Clinton political machine would have to operate without much of the millions it has come to expect from the movie industry in the past.  But now Hillary has begun her fundraising swing through Hollywood, and she’s so far collected more than double what Geffen was able to raise for Obama.

Sen. Hillary Clinton hit Hollywood last night at the estate of grocery store mogul Ron Burkle and took home $2.6 million for her presidential campaign.

It was twice as much as Sen. Barack Obama raised last month at a similar fundraiser thrown by Dreamworks SKG’s David Geffen — a point that was made privately during the Clinton event by many of the fundraisers.

And while the Burkle event didn’t have the quantity of star power that the Geffen event had, it sure had the quality. Clinton was seated at the head table with Barbra Streisand and her husband, actor James Brolin; Yahoo chief executive Terry Semel, who once was the co-head of Warner Bros. with Robert Daly; Daly, with wife, songwriter Carole Bayer Sager.

Does this matter?  Probably not much.  Once the Dems pick their candidate for 2008 most of the Hollywood folks will fill in line behind him (or her) like the good liberal sheep they are, with a few of the nuttier ones probably finding some third party candidate to their liking.

But it is fun to watch the sniping and back-biting for now.