A Campaign Stop With a Hip, Innovative Air
Candidates Flock To an Increasingly Political Google

By Jose Antonio Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 22, 2007

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- In a visit earlier this year to the Googleplex, the WiFi-connected, eco-friendly headquarters of Google, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) called the company "the best place to work in America."

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who stopped by in May, said that Googlers, as Google's more than 12,000 employees are known, are "the future of this nation."

The Googlers, for their part, are used to the attention from presidential candidates eager to add a hip, online-savvy, we-get-it aspect to their résumés, as well as to wrap themselves in the aura of one of the nation's great business success stories.

Besides Clinton and McCain, Gov. Bill Richardson (D) of New Mexico, former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.), Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) and New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a possible independent candidate, have come to Mountain View to take a closer look at a corporate culture that is the epitome of Silicon Valley self-confidence and innovation.

Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, called the question-and-answer sessions "a job interview with the American people."

"And you're also sort of interviewing with Google," Schmidt told McCain at a packed town hall meeting. "It's hard to get a job at Google."

Access to visiting politicians is typically limited in the tech world to corporate executives, in private meetings. Not so at Google, where the town hall meetings are open to all employees and posted later on the Internet, on Google-owned YouTube.

The candidates learn about products such as Google Earth, a satellite imaging program; get an introduction to what's referred to as the company's Googley culture; and discuss a wide range of topics (atheism, Russian relations, Internet access in Africa) in hour-long sessions that can seem a long way from Iowa and New Hampshire.

The visits are a strategic move for Google, which has increased its presence in Washington in the past year and shown signs of increasing political sophistication. Known as a left-leaning company -- Googlers donated overwhelmingly to Democrats in the 2004 elections -- it formed Google NetPAC last fall and has given to Republicans, including Sens. Arlen Specter (Pa.) and John E. Sununu (N.H.).

In March, it co-sponsored the annual Politics Online conference of George Washington University's Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet and presented a workshop, "Google on the Campaign Trail," to online political operatives. To publicize its policy positions, it launched the Google Public Policy Blog last month.

For Google, the visits are an opportunity to let politicians know of its interests, which include Net neutrality -- the principle of Internet service providers treating all Web sites equally -- and immigration laws that would allow more skilled workers into the United States.

For candidates, a Google stop is part of the obligatory Silicon Valley tour. But even in the Valley, birthplace of many prominent high-tech companies and home to an affluent voting bloc, the company holds a special symbolism.

"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."