Tech giant Google was, until Friday, slated to host a major fundraising event for a group aiming to “help recruit and support young diverse progressives to run for down-ballot races” at its luxurious downtown Washington, DC, offices next week.
The “Party for Something” event’s website lists no location, and states that it will be provided upon RSVP. Breitbart News learned, however, that that location was, as recently as Thursday, the 55,000 square foot office space that has served as a base for Google’s lobbying arm since 2013.
The June 6 party, put on by a group called “Run for Something,” seeks to help build a “bench” of low-level elected left-wingers within the Democratic Party. It boasts a top-tier speakers’ list headed by Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). Run for Something promises “a night of fun, games, drinks, and building the damn bench.”
Donation solicitations run up to $50,000 for a table of 12. According to the event registration page, “100% of the funds raised support Run for Something PAC.”
Breitbart News confirmed Friday, after details of the event began to filter out, that the Party for Something will no longer be held at those offices.
Run for Something is led by Amanda Litman, who ran Hillary Clinton’s marketing email program for her ill-fated 2016 campaign, and is run in cooperation with various state Democratic organizations and leading far-left non-profits like the George Soros-funded Moveon.org and leading pro-abortion political action committee EMILY’s List.
Charles Olivier, who since March has worked at Google’s Global Finance Operations out of the same D.C. offices, serves on the Run for Something board of advisers. Before Google, Olivier served stints as the chief financial officer of both the Democratic National Committee and the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign. The Run for Something advisory board also includes Cristobal Alex, the man behind the Latino Victory Fund ad that painted supporters of Senate candidate Ed Gillespie as murderous racists intent on running Latino kids over with pickup trucks and Teddy Goff, the Obama campaign digital guru whom Wikileaks later revealed contacted Google and other Big Tech companies to establish “working relationships” with Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2014.
“Donald Trump is president, so throw everything you know about politics out the window,” Run for Something exhorts potential candidates, whom it promises, “You’re qualified to run for local office – we’re here to help.”
Run for Something specifically supports further left candidates for office than the Democratic mainstream, citing news reports on their website that such candidates are “outperforming moderates,” and rejecting “the standard ‘viability’ test.”
“Our risk tolerance is high,” Run for Something promotional materials explain, “Like incubators or venture capital firms in the tech world, we don’t expect all (or even a majority) of our ‘investments’ to win the first time out.”
Google has a long-running and intensifying connection to the political left. As Wikileaks revealed in 2016, then-Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt considered serving as Hillary Clinton’s “head outside advisor” as early as October 2014. Since then, Google has stood accused of altering algorithms for its search engine and YouTube video site and partnering with far-left groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center to severely penalize voices of the right on its platforms. Google is also embroiled in a lawsuit over its firing of employees for refusal to conform to progressive politics.
Google has not, however, forsaken the political right in Washington. The company was a major sponsor of 2018’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and co-hosted an event with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and the conservative Newsmax last year.
Google declined to comment on the record for this story. Run for Something did not immediately reply to Breitbart News’s request for comment.