Haim Saban still hadn’t decided whether or not to help Senator Barack Obama get elected president when he picked up the phone this summer and began planning an imaginary event.

The Hollywood billionaire , and America’s top political-campaign contributor , was still heartbroken over Senator Hillary Clinton’s defeat. As one of her national finance chairs, he had single-handedly raised more than $1 million from his friends and associates, and her departure from the race had left him so bereft that he considered backing John McCain.

When that idea met with opposition from Saban’s wife, Cheryl, and their four children (“Are you kidding? We pounced on him,” she recalled), the self-described “cartoon schlepper” (he made his first millions in kiddie TV) was left with two options.

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