Obama is Silicon Valley fav in this article: In Primary, Tech's Home

[illinoisprogressive]

For presidential candidates campaigning in Iowa, the place to be is the state fair. Diners are popular in New Hampshire. But for those visiting Silicon Valley, it’s the Googleplex.

The destination, Google’s headquarters, is packed full of young millionaires, just the kind of audience presidential candidates want to meet while building campaign funds. Already, Google, the fast-growing search and advertising company, has been visited by five candidates, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, John McCain, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson.

When Representative Ron Paul, the iconoclastic Texas Republican, appeared, he attracted an overflow crowd of 250 people, and 100 others watched on monitors from another room. Mr. Paul garnered $3,350 from Google employees. But Mrs. Clinton got 10 times that amount from Google employees, and Mr. Obama raised nearly twice as much as she did.

Like auto factories a generation ago, Google is increasingly popular as a place to raise money and speak to a crowd, signifying the larger role that Silicon Valley is playing in presidential politics. Candidates passing through the Valley have never raised so much money so early. In the first half of the year, the computer industry contributed $2.2 million to all candidates in the primary, up from $1.2 million in the first six months of each of the last two presidential primary races.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/24/technology/24valley.html?ref=us