Previous posts have discussed the rocky relationship of the GOP and Silicon Valley. On Wednesday, Open Secrets reported:
California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the No. 3 Republican in the House, is taking a group of GOP lawmakers to Silicon Valley this week to court untapped resources for their re-election bids at
Facebook, Google and similar stops.
McCarthy only recently began securing significant support from the tech industry, and seems to be eager for more. In the last election, Oracle Corpbecame McCarthy's fourth-highest donor, thanks to $31,500 it gave to McCarthy's campaign committee and leadership PAC. He was Oracle's fifth-highest grantee in the last election, after President Obama, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and former Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.).
Both Microsoft and Google have been slowly warming up to McCarthy. Neither contributed to his 2008 campaign, but Microsoft contributed $17,500 overall to McCarthy in 2012, up from $15,000 in 2010. Google's support of McCarthy jumped to $20,000 in 2012, from $8,000 in 2010, according to OpenSecrets.org data.
McCarthy's tour group includes Reps. Steve Scalise (La.), Mike Pompeo (Kan.), Cory Gardner (Colo.), Susan Brooks (Ind.), George Holding (N.C.), Patrick Meehan (Pa.) andPatrick McHenry (N.C.) -- presumably to show them how it's done. Microsoft contributed $7,000 and $3,000 to the campaigns of Scalise and Holding, respectively, in the 2012 cycle, and Holding took in another $5,000 from Google. Otherwise, the tech sector is largely absent from the group's campaign coffers.
