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Tag Archive: Barack Obama

Facebook in Washington: Baby steps of a giant

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Facebook, which has set off a frenzy of market speculation with its plans go public as early as Friday,  isn't just raising its profile on Wall Street. As the social networking giant prepares for its initial stock offering, Sunlight decided to take a look at how Facebook is doing when it comes to political networking. Our finding: The company with the famously hoodied CEO is beginning to grow up, at least in the ways of Washington.

In the first quarter of this year, Facebook spent $650,000 lobbying Congress, according to a report filed with the Senate Office of ...

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Coincidence? Sunlight map shows how Obama fundraising crosses paths with his super PAC

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Obama and Priorities USA fundraising paths often cross.

Although super PACs are not allowed to coordinate with candidates when it comes to campaign spending, the Federal Election Commission has determined that it's permissible for candidates to raise money for the super PACs supporting them. 

With that in mind, Sunlight analyzed President Obama's campaign fundraisers and cross-referenced them with the locations of donors to the Priorities USA Action super PAC, which supports Obama.

We drew on data from our Follow the Unlimited Money tracker as well as  Political Party Time, our database of political fundraisers. We also got an ...

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Super PACs first quarter haul: More than $100 million in political contributions

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Super PACs raised more in the first three months of 2012 than they did in all of 2011, and after just two years of existence have emerged as a financial force that rivals the political parties and candidates' campaign committees.

An unusual conjunction of Federal Election Committee filing deadlines -- reports from campaign committees that file quarterly were due at midnight Sunday while those that file monthly were due Friday -- has given us the first comprehensive look at the impact of super PACs in the first presidential campaign year where they've been a factor.

An analysis of data gathered by ...

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Brazil-U.S. trip part of larger PR strategy

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Dilma and Obama 2011

Warming up for a summit of hemispheric leaders in Colombia later this week, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff today wraps up a brief visit to the United States, where she met President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and leaders of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Despite the high-profile dance card, Reuters quoted some Brazilian officials as complaining that their president didn't get quite the reception she and her country deserves.  "There's a feeling that most people in Washington don't appreciate what's happening in Brazil," the news agency reported one official close to Rousseff as saying ...

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Who’s the web savviest presidential candidate of all?

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Running for president requires web presence. Facebook, Twitter, web videos and websites that take online donations are ubiquitous among this year's presidential contenders. Yet, in an ever-more sophisticated technical world, the basics are not enough, and each candidate is trying some unique approaches to mine the Internet for donations -- a key to President Obama's fundraising success in 2008.

As the GOP race moves today into the president's home state, Sunlight has taken a look at what the major contenders are doing on the web:

Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney,  hoping that a commanding win in today's Illinois ...

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Ohio, Tennessee and Georgia see super PAC influx

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Of the nearly $10.7 million dollars in super PAC spending dumped on the super Tuesday states over the last two weeks, three — Ohio, Tennessee and Georgia — account for nearly all of the spending and almost half of the available delegates.

According to Sunlight's super PAC tracker, the race for Ohio and its 66 delegates leads the spending spree with nearly $4.5 million, nearly half of all the super PAC money spent in the past two weeks on super Tuesday states. The biggest spender has been Restore Our Future, which supports former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. That super ...

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On eve of Netanyahu visit, a look at Israel’s lobbying

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday begins a visit to the United States amid tensions surrounding Iran's nuclear program and a report President Obama will urge his Israeli counterpart to postpone a preemptive strike. In addition to Obama, Netanyahu will call on another U.S. power political player, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

AIPAC, which has been sounding the alarm on Iran, is the largest pro-Israeli lobbying operation, with $2.8 million in lobbying expenditures last year, according to Senate reports, AIPAC  will draw top politicians from both countries to its 2012 Policy Conference. Besides Obama ...

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