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AP Obama & Biden Button |
The group put together donation records for some of the top companies in Silicon Valley and the numbers are striking. Overall, Obama outraised John McCain $1,434,719 to $267,041. Google [GOOG
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]was Obama's single biggest corporate donor, racking up $485,961 in donations, compared to only $20,600 for John McCain. It's no accident that Google is Obama's top donor, especially with a high profile endorsement by Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who appeared in the candidate's infomercial recently. As for McCain's biggest corporate donor? That'd be Cisco Systems[CSCO
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], where CEO John Chambers is a vocal supporter of McCain as a co-chairman of his campaign. Employees there forked over $80,676 to McCain. But those donations still didn't measure up to the $149,078 Cisco employees also sent Obama's way.
Other notables? Apple Inc.[AAPL
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] workers donated $98,023 for Obama and $16,950 for McCain; Hewlett-Packard [HPQ
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]employees raised $148,057 for Obama, and $15,750 for McCain; Yahoo[YHOO
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] workers represented the biggest gap in Obama's favor, raising $100,276 for Obama compared to the $4,050 for McCain. EBay [EBAY
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]sent $46,660 to Obama, and $4,150 to McCain. That's a wide spread at Hewlett-Packard where former CEO Carly Fiorina, a key McCain supporter, apparently didn't wield much influence over her former charges. Same at eBay where Meg Whitman, originally a big Mitt Romney supporter, transitioned to the McCain camp.
Oracle [ORCL
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]was also a huge Obama donor: $134,421 for the Democratic candidate and $36,586 for McCain. The only company among the top donors tilting in McCain's favor? Sanmina-SCI, raising $250 for Obama, and $2,800 for McCain.
Important to note: The Center for Responsive Politics says some contributors didn't identify their employer so all of this might not represent every donation. Also important: McCain's fundraising was limited because he accepted public-financing while Obama did not, so that might skew the numbers in Obama's favor as well.
Meantime, if it seems like a surprise that so many big companies and their workers are throwing their financial support behind a Democrat, it isn't. It was back in 1992 that a group of Silicon Valley CEOs, led by then-Apple CEO John Sculley stepped up to support Bill Clinton who made a big deal out of so many business and Republican leaders coming into the Democratic camp.
That of course led to multiple visits by President Clinton to Silicon Valley and gave leaders in this area unprecedented access to the Oval Office during his two terms as president.
Silicon Valley leaders have largely been shut out of the highest echelons of political influence in Washington during the Bush years. That's something that might change significantly if Obama moves into the White House.
And that could come in handy when you're talking big issues facing companies around here, including stock-options backdating; net neutrality; research and development and capital gains tax credits; off-shoring and outsourcing and H1B visas; global trade; the FCC's increasing influence over so many key areas of tech; and of course the FTC and Justice Department taking a very active interest in just about every partnership and initiative by Silicon Valley companies.
Should be interesting to see if Silicon Valley can cash in on the cash it's sent Obama's way. It's worked in the past.
Questions? Comments?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes