Are Obama, Facebook too friendly?

Facebook is downplaying the partisan aspects of the president's visit on Wednesday. | AP Photo By: Michelle Quinn April 19, 2011 04:32 PM EDT

SAN FRANCISCO — President Barack Obama and Facebook both have a lot to gain when he holds a town hall meeting at the company’s Palo Alto headquarters Wednesday. Obama can burnish his high-tech, “win the future” image by tying himself to Facebook ahead of the 2012 campaign. And Facebook can signal that it’s a serious player on the national stage by hosting the president ahead of a much-expected IPO. “This is the ultimate accolade of the emergence of Facebook,” said Peter Sealey, a business consultant who sat on Facebook’s advisory board back when the company had just 18 employees. “The president gets to talk directly to potential voters. Facebook gets incredible validation. It’s a win-win.” Well, maybe. Political consultants and brand managers says politicians and companies put themselves at risk when they become linked in the public eye. Think Dick Cheney and Halliburton. George W. Bush and Enron. Hillary Clinton and Wal-Mart. And, increasingly, Obama and Google. Obama’s Facebook event is “political product placement — with the president seeking to leverage Silicon Valley's innovation, future, entrepreneur brand and the companies seeking to benefit from being associated with the most powerful office of the most powerful country,” said Chris Lehane, a political consultant to Democrats and unions who worked in the White House in the Clinton years. “Of course,” Lehane added, “the perils of such a mutual leveraging for the president is if a company does something that turns it into an Enron or BP and for the companies if they become defined as partisan in the way Halliburton or Koch was closely linked to the Bush White House and Republican Party." “It’s honorable for any company to host a president,” said Aaron McLear, GOP political consultant and former spokesman for then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. But, he added, “Large companies try to appeal to a mass audience and it’s smart of them to be nonpartisan. Administrations change. You want to have relationships and dialog with anyone in power. The better relationships you have with people in power, the better chance you have in getting things done for your company.” Facebook is downplaying the partisan aspects of Obama’s visit Wednesday. In a statement, a Facebook spokesman said: “We’re honored that President Obama will be visiting Facebook next week and will be using our platform to communicate directly with an international audience. More broadly, we’re heartened that political figures are using Facebook to organize and reach people in a direct, personal, simple way that was unimaginable a decade ago.” As the spokesman suggested, Facebook has friends on both sides of the aisle. Among the politicians who have visited the company's headquarters are former President George W. Bush and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) are among those who have appeared on Facebook Live, the company's live-streaming channel. Facebook says it is “happy to consider other types of non-fundraising visits to Facebook headquarters by political candidates, elected and government officials.” But the company isn’t blind to political reality — and it has shown some sensitivity to the notion that it’s taking sides. Facebook’s D.C. office, for example, now has ties to the Obama and Bush administrations. The company recently hired Marne Levine, former chief of staff of Obama’s National Economics Council, as its new vice president of global public policy. But it also hired Cathie Martin, a former top aide for Bush and Cheney, as its director of public policy. Still, the Facebook-Obama connection is strong. Obama used Facebook in his 2008 campaign with the help of a Facebook co-founder who took a leave of absence to join the campaign. Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg, who used to be at Google, sits on the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. In February, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg ditched his hoodie for a necktie and had dinner with Obama and other Valley leaders at the home of venture capitalist John Doerr. Wednesday’s town hall — one of several on Obama’s schedule this week — will focus on “the tough choices we must all make in order to put our economy on a more responsible fiscal path, while still investing in areas like innovation that will help our economy grow and make America more competitive,” according to the description on Facebook. The White House tried Monday to drum up interest in the event by posting a video in which Obama encourages people to “take a break from either friending or de-friending each other” to RSVP for the event on the White House’s Facebook page. Ironically, the White House posted the video on YouTube — which is owned by Obama’s old BFF, Google. Journalist Steven Levy, the author of the new Google bio “In the Plex,” said it must be a “strange feeling” for Google to have its “suitor” going “somewhere else” on the trip west. But others say it’s Facebook that should worry more about playing favorites. Sam Singer, president of the reputation and issues-management firm Singer Associates, said Facebook should follow up on the Obama event by hosting GOP presidential contenders as part of a “self-imposed fairness doctrine.” This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 5:32 a.m. on April 19, 2011