A Campaign Stop With a Hip, Innovative Air

"People in Silicon Valley will tell you -- some begrudgingly, because Google's a competitor -- that Google is one of the true success stories in the area," said Betsy Mullin of TechNet, a bipartisan political network of chief executives and other senior executives of leading tech companies.

Google's headquarters, about 30 miles south of San Francisco, is really more like UC-Google, an extension of California's college campuses. Googlers are mostly in their 20s and 30s, some sporting T-shirts, cargo shorts and flip-flops at work, many with their bicycles and dogs (pets are allowed on campus) in tow.

Fortune magazine listed Google as the top company to work for earlier this year, with perks that are the envy of the Valley. Nothing's mandatory, except for eating all the free gourmet food. Googlers are encouraged to spend 20 percent of their work time, one day a week, on projects that interest them. These independent projects have led to new products, among them the e-mail service Gmail and Google News.

"Google has become a symbolic firm, as GM might have been in the 1930s and 1940s and IBM in the 1950s and '60s. . . . They're about sharing. Being open. Transparency. How that will transform politics as we know it, we'll have to see," said Fred Turner, author of "From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network and the Rise of Digital Utopianism" and an assistant professor at Stanford University.

"A visit to Google, in a way, is like stopping by the Internet of today. When you visit Google, you're respecting that sensibility and showing your alliance with it."

And candidates better come prepared -- and show some personality.

Asked to take Googlers to the future as she sees it, a relaxed, confident Clinton said, "I want you all to imagine with me what our country would look like in 10 years . . . which would be the end of my second term." She listed what her administration would accomplish: universal health care, an independent energy system, qualified math and science teachers.

To be sure, tension is inescapable, as are follow-up questions.

Paul has a small but intense following, particularly among young Googlers, but he drew dead silence by remarking, "I tend to think it's overblown, global warming."

Edwards, initially unaware of Google's controversial business with China -- the company agreed to censor search services there -- had to quickly recover and told reporters afterward, "I would be engaged with the Chinese in a very tough way to make sure they're aware of where we see abuses occur."

And McCain, who supports the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military, looked increasingly uncomfortable when a Googler pressed him on the discharging of linguists because of their sexual orientation.

McCain defended the policy, which he said is supported by the military brass. The Googler retorted, "Just how much safer should I feel knowing that the U.S. military has a reduced capacity to translate Arabic and Farsi?"

Said Ann Farmer, a 56-year-old Googler and registered Democrat: "I don't agree with McCain on several issues, but he came and he articulated his positions. You have to respect that. As for Clinton, her visit moved me from feeling negative towards her to feeling positive. You can't question her intelligence. I like Ron Paul. He's redefining what's being discussed and how it's being discussed, especially about individual freedom and the role of the federal government."

But, Farmer continued: "I'm still waiting for a candidate to blow me away. Someone who'll really get away from the canned responses and the political calculations and the 10-second sound bites. This is Google. At Google, we have unlimited attention spans."