Obama's '08 donors: Keep Hoping for Change
Obama took a lot of money in 2008. Here's how he paid his corporate donors back once winning the election.
Who were Barack Obama's donors in 2008? And, more importantly, how has he paid them all back since winning the presidential election?
According to OpenSecrets.org, in 2008, Barack Obama's top contributors were:
1. University of California - $1,591,395
RECIPROCATION:
November 25, 2008: UC Berkeley economics professor Christina D. Romer is nominated by President-elect Obama to head his Council of Economic Advisers.
February 24, 2010: Obama nominates Goodwin Liu for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Mr. Liu served as an Associate Dean and Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.
September 17, 2010: President Obama nominates a former professor and PhD graduate from University of California, Berkley - Inez Fung and Margaret Murnane.
December 10, 2010: Steven Chu, a former physics professor at UC Berkeley, is nominated by Obama to become Secretary of Energy.
February 24, 2011: Obama nominates Carl Shapiro to his Council of Economic advisers, professor of business and economics at UC Berkeley.
2. Goldman Sachs $994,795
RECIPROCATION:
November 28, 2008: President-Elect Obama selects Timothy Geithner to be Treasury Secretary. Geithner played a supporting role to Henry Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, in the decision to bail out AIG.
George W. Bush, who also received funding from Goldman Sachs PACs (in 2004 - $390,600), nominated Henry Paulson as Treasury Secretary - a former CEO of Sachs. TIME magazine commented on him, stating: "if there is a face to this financial debacle, it is now his".
January 26, 2009: Obama nominates Elena Kagan, a former member of the Research Advisory Council of the Goldman Sachs Global Markets Institute, as Solicitor General.
August 7, 2009: Obama nominates Philip Murphy, former senior director and head of Goldman Sach's Frankfurt office, as the German ambassador.
September 23, 2009: Robert Hormats, former Vice-Chairman of Goldman Sachs, is sworn in as Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs.
3. Harvard University $854,747
RECIPROCATION:
January 7 ,2009: Cass Sunstein is tapped by Obama to run the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. In 2008, he co-authored a paper about cognitive infiltration of "conspiracy theory" movements within the United States. He is an advocate of animal welfare. In respect to Harvard, Sunstein is a former law professor at Harvard.
January 26, 2009: Elena Kagan (mentioned previously) was a graduate of, professor at, and the first female dean of, Harvard University. She is nominated to the Supreme Court.
March 18, 2009: Ashton Carter, a defense faculty member at Harvard, is nominated by Obama to become Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics.
April 27, 2009: Daniel Schrag becomes a member of President Obama's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology. Schrag is a professor at Harvard and also serves as the Director of the Harvard University-wide Center for Environment.
Daniel Press, Professor of Astronomy and Physics at Harvard, also becomes a member of Obama's council of advisers on this date, along with Eric Lander, Director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and Dr. John Holdren, who, prior to this appointment, was a Professor of Environmental Policy and Director of the Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
Lawrence Summers, former president of Harvard, worked as Director of the White House National Economic Council for President Obama, receiving an endorsement from Henry Kissinger.
According to the New York Times, "Lawrence H. Summers, the top economic adviser to President Obama, earned more than $5 million ... from the hedge fund D. E. Shaw and collected $2.7 million in speaking fees from Wall Street companies that received government bailout money."
4. Microsoft Corp $833,617
RECIPROCATION:
April 27, 2009: Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer at Microsoft Corporation, becomes a member of President Obama's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology.
May 13, 2009: Obama meets with a handful of business leaders, including Cecily Hall, Microsoft's director of US benefits.
December 22, 2009: Former Microsoft security executive Howard Schmidt is appointed to the position of cyber security coordinator for the Obama administration.
Former President George W. Bush hired him for one term to hold a similar position during his presidency.
April 16, 2010: The Obama administration appoints Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles to lead an 18-person, bi-partisan commission to tackle the deficit. According to TechDirt, the commission "contacted Microsoft's Steve Ballmer about Microsoft creating 'a deficit-reduction video game' that would allow the average American to attempt balancing the budget."
5. Google Inc $803,436
RECIPROCATION:
April 27, 2009: Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Google Inc., becomes a member of President Obama's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology. Schmidt backed Senator Obama during the 2008 election.
November 2009: Google buys ads to explain why an offensive image of First Lady Michelle Obama is back in its images index. During the Bush administration, Google bought ads to explain why George W. Bush's page on whitehouse.gov ranked first when a user searched "miserable failure".
May 29, 2009: Google CEO Andrew McLaughlin is tapped by Obama to become the Deputy Chief Technology Officer.
October 21, 2010: Marissa Mayer, vice president of consumer products at Google, hosts a fundraising event for Obama. The fee per person is $30,000.
February 23, 2011: Obama adds tech leaders to jobs council, one of which is Sheryl Sandberg - former employee of Google.
John Doerr, one of the richest people in the world according to Forbes, is also added - and is a Google investor.
6. Citigroup Inc $701,290
RECIPROCATION:
December 16, 2009: According to the Washington Post, "Citigroup said that the value of its past losses was about $38 billion", and to make up for this, the federal government is "allowing it to avoid taxes on its next $38 billion in profits."
After serving under the Obama administration in the Office of Management and Budget Director, Peter R. Orszag joined Citigroup. He is replaced by Jacob Lew, who received $1.1 million from Citigroup prior to taking the position.
Michael Froman is given the position of deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs. He received "at least $1.1 million in salary and bonus last year" from Citigroup, according to the New York Times.
7. JPMorgan Chase Co $695,132
RECIPROCATION:
January 6, 2011: President Obama names William M. Daley, former Midwest Chairman of JPMorgan Chase, as his White House Chief of Staff. Daley also formerly served on the Board of Directors of Boeing.
In 2004, George W. Bush received $205,900 from JPMorgan PACs.
8. Time Warner/AOL $590,084
RECIPROCATION:
On May 6, 2009, Michelle Obama is honored at the Time Warner Center.
Richard Parsons, former CEO of Time Warner, is a member of the economic advisory team for President Obama.
In 2001, President George W. Bush selected Parsons to co-chair a commission on Social Security.
Ronald Klain, chief of staff to Vice President Biden, worked as a lobbyist at O'Melveny & Myers, which listed Time Warner as a client, according to the National Journal.
Also according to the National Journal, Dan Turton, deputy director of legislative affairs for the House, "once lobbied for the Entertainment Software Association. A spokesman for ESA - a group whose members include Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Inc., a division of Time Warner, Microsoft and Sony - confirmed Turton once did work for the association."
David Kris worked at Time Warner as a counsel, Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer and Senior Vice President until joining the Obama administration as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department's National Security Division.
February 23, 2011: Obama adds tech leaders to jobs council, one of which is Steve Case - former Director of Time Warner.
George W. Bush received $76,900 from AOL/Time Warner PAC's in 2000.
9. Sidley Austin LLP (aka, $588,598
RECIPROCATION:
January 5, 2011: President Obama nominates Virginia A. Seitz, a partner of Sidney Austin, to Assistant Attorney General for OLC (Office of Legal Council).
Barack Obama was once a summer associate in the Chicago office of the law firm.
10. Stanford University $586,557
RECIPROCATION:
December 3, 2008: As reported by CBS: "With the presidential inauguration rapidly approaching, President-elect Barack Obama has recruited a number of Stanford professors as advisers for his transition team. Among those selected advisers include Profs. Linda Darling-Hammond, Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuellar, Michael McFaul, Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall and Peter Blair Henry".
March 27, 2010: Alan Bersin is nominated by Barack Obama to serve as Commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection. He is a former lecturer at Stanford University School of Education.
May, 2011: Obama announces he will nominate Michael McFau as his his top White House adviser for Russian foreign policy. McFau is a professor at Stanford University.
11. National Amusements Inc $551,683
RECIPROCATION:
National Amusements controls Viacom (MTV, +170 media networks).
July 2010: Obama administration announces a massive internet piracy crackdown.
October 14, 2010: Barack Obama takes part in a youth town hall special called "A Conversation With President Obama." Accoring to MTV, "the interactive one-hour event will air live and commercial-free on MTV, MTVu, BET, Centric, TR3s and CMT at 4 p.m. (ET) and stream live on MTV.com, BET.com and CMT.com."
January 24, 2011: President Obama nominates former Recording Industry Association of America lawyer Donald Verrilli Jr. to serve as the nation's solicitor general.
12. UBS AG $543,219
RECIPROCATION:
According to the Wall Street Journal, Robert Wolf, chief executive of UBS Group Americas, "has visited the White House nearly 20 times since Mr. Obama moved in last January (2009). Mr. Wolf lunched alone with the president in June (2010). He joined him July 4th (2010) to watch the national fireworks from the White House lawn. They golfed together on Martha's Vineyard in August (2010)."
13. Wilmerhale Llp $542,618
RECIPROCATION:
Paul A. Engelmayer is nominated to be a judge on the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The 1987 graduate of Harvard Law School is the partner-in-charge of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP's New York office.
Also on this date, Wilmerhale partner Edward C. DuMont is nominated to join the US Court of Appeals.
14. Skadden, Arps et al $530,839
RECIPROCATION:
Greg Craig, a partner in one of the country's largest law firms (Skadden), works as White House Counsel under President Barack Obama.
15. IBM Corp $528,822
RECIPROCATION:
June 19, 2009: David Kappos is nominated by Obama as the new Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). He joined IBM in 1983 as a developmental engineer and has served a variety of roles in the company.
October 6, 2010: A group of technology company executives led by IBM Corp. chairman Samuel J. Palmisano releases a report saying the federal government could save $1 trillion by 2020 through more efficient use of computers.
February 23, 2011: Obama adds tech leaders to jobs council, one of which is Paul Otellini - former CEO of IBM.
16. Columbia University $528,302
RECIPROCATION:
September 17, 2009: Gerard Edmund Lynch is nominated as a federal judge. He joined the Columbia faculty in 1977.
17. Morgan Stanley $514,881
RECIPROCATION:
September 30, 2010: The White House announces President Barack Obama's intention to nominate Thomas Nides, chief operating officer of Morgan Stanley, to be the next deputy Secretary of State for management and resources.
18. General Electric $499,130
RECIPROCATION:
January 2011: President Obama taps General Electric Co. Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt to lead an initiative on jobs and US competitiveness.
January 18, 2011: Comcast Chief Executive Officer Brian Roberts buys NBC Universal from General Electric - a $13.8B deal. On February 22, Roberts is appointed by Obama to his jobs council.
February 8, 2011: According to Vice President Biden, President Barack Obama will ask Congress to approve a six-year, $53 billion program for construction of a national high-speed and intercity rail network. GE Transportation President and Chief Executive Officer Lorenzo Simonelli, whose company is the leading manufacturer of diesel-electric locomotives, welcomed Biden's announcement.
Military-Industrial Complex
TIME Magazine published an article on October 31, 2008, titled "Obama Beats McCain in Defense Contributions". Citing information from the Center for Responsible Politics (OpenSecrets.org), TIME writes: "Barack Obama's campaign pocketed $870,165 from defense-contractor sources, 34% more than the $647,313 in contributions McCain's campaign received from the same sector."
This trend has continued in to the 2012 President Election, with Obama receiving much more support from the military-industrial complex than Romney.