 On Monday, I posted on the political donations of executives from Anheuser-Busch Cos., Google Inc., Electronic Arts Inc. and Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. But that was just a fraction of what I turned up plugging names into this campaign search tool at Huffingtonpost.com. All told, I searched about 20 corporate executives. Only the search of Apple Inc. chief executive Steve Jobs turned up zero political contributions, and only a handful of other executives contributed to the campaign of a presidential candidate. Many executives contributed generously to their company political action committees, while others targeted local senate and congressional candidates or, not surprisingly, politicians who chaired committees with oversight of the executive's industry. And while some executives had a clear party preference, others split their contributions between GOP candidates and Dems. (As you'll see below, General Electric Co. CEO Jeffrey Immelt was a master at this.) So who gave what to whom? Here are a few notables: Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer - $5,000 to the Microsoft PAC, 4Q07
- $5,000 to the business Software Alliance PAC, 4Q07
- $2,300 to Congressman Dave Reichert, R-Wash., 4Q07
- $21,000 in $1,000 increments to GOP and Democratic PACs and congressional candidates, including Senate Appropriations Committee member Arlen Specter, R-Pa., Judiciary Committee member Lamar Smith, R-Texas, and Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus, D-Mont.
Yahoo! Inc. CEO Jerry Yang - $28,500 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign, 4Q07
- $28,500 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign, 4Q07
- $5,000 to the Yahoo! PAC, 4Q07
- $2,300 to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 2Q07
General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt - $2,300 to John McCain, R-Ariz., 1Q08
- $2,300 to Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., 4Q07
- $2,300 to Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., 4Q07
- $2,300 to former GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, 4Q07
- $2,300 to former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, 4Q07
- $2,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee, 3Q07
Hewlett-Packard Co. CEO Mark Hurd - $5,852 to the Hewlett-Packard PAC, 2007-08
Electronic Data Systems Corp. CEO Ron Rittenmeyer - $10,000 to the EDS PAC, 2007-09
- $2,300 to John Cornyn, R-Texas, 4Q07
- $5,000 to the Republican Party of Texas, 3Q07
- $2,300 to John McCain, R-Ariz., 1Q07
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon - $10,000 to the J.P. Morgan PAC, 2007-08
- $2,300 to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., 4Q07
- $4,600 to Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., 3Q07
- $4,000 to Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., 2Q07
- $28,500 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign, 2Q07
- $18,000 in $2,000 increments to mostly Democratic congressional candidates, including Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus,D-Mont., Ways and Means Committee Chair Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Rahm Emanuel, D-lll.
Sprint Nextel Corp. CEO Daniel Hesse - $1,300 to Kay Barnes, D, for Congress, 1Q08
- $2,300 to John McCain, R-Ariz., 3Q08
Verizon Communications Inc. CEO Ivan Seidenberg - $2,300 to Susan Collins, R-Maine, 4Q07
- $2,300 to Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, 3Q07
- $2,300 to Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y, 1Q07
- $2,100 to John McCain, R-Ariz., 1Q07
That's probably enough to digest for one post. But as the presidential race -- for votes and dollars -- rages on, we'll look into the political contributions of other executives in the future. It's only going to get more interesting. - Suzanne Stevens
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