Google’s Search for Political Influence

Of the billions of searches conducted by Google Inc., potentially its most important is playing out in offices above an Asian fusion restaurant here: the quest for influence in the nation’s capital.

The Silicon Valley company’s dominance of Internet search is built on its mastery of advanced mathematical algorithms. But like other fast-growing tech titans before it, Google is finding Washington’s political calculus harder to solve.

Since opening its Washington office last summer, Google’s attempts to establish its presence has moved at dial-up speed -- resulting in a slow and sometimes balky connection with lawmakers that has irritated both Democrats and Republicans.

“I think they’ve been a little bit too innocent in how the game is played,” said Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a tech-focused Washington think tank.

Google’s efforts to rally support for rules guaranteeing open Internet access -- an abstract issue known as Net neutrality -- has been called largely ineffective by key Democratic supporters. Heavily lopsided political contributions to Democrats from Google employees have annoyed the GOP majority. And in what veteran lobbyists called a high-profile tactical mistake, a Google executive called before a House panel this year tried to engage subcommittee members critical of the firm in a debate.

The head of Google’s three-person Washington operation is unapologetic for the unconventional company’s unconventional strategy.

“Google will always be Google,” said Alan B. Davidson, the company’s Washington policy counsel. “We’re not going to hide. We’re going to talk about what we’re doing. We think that being transparent and open is the better long-run approach.”

But in the short run -- and Washington is a city obsessed with the short run -- Google is proving a time-tested axiom: It may have rewritten the rules for Internet companies, but nobody rewrites the rules of politics.

“Politics is much more of an art than a science,” said Rick White, former head of TechNet, an industry lobbying group. “Art is probably too nice a word for it. It’s a right-brain thing. These guys really come out of a left-brain kind of world. A lot of them who are very well-meaning, very effective, smart people, still have a hard time intuitively understanding how Washington, D.C., works.”

White saw that in the mid-1990s when he was a Republican congressman representing the district that is home to Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft Corp. He said he tried to convince Microsoft that it needed a stronger Washington presence.

When the antitrust case exploded in 1998 with a Justice Department suit, Microsoft finally got the message, White said. The software giant now has one of Washington’s largest and most effective lobbying operations: an in-house staff of 19, with an additional $8.7 million spent last year on outside firms.

“It’s not going to take that long for Google because they have learned from the Microsoft experience,” White said. “They’re smart guys. They will figure it out.”

Google said it planned to significantly increase Washington spending this year to nearly $1 million. That still pales in comparison to rival Microsoft, as well as spending by the phone and cable companies that Google is battling over key telecommunications legislation.

Google christened its Washington operation last year as Congress began weighing telecom legislation that could hinder its ability to deliver video and other high-bandwidth applications. It hired Davidson, associate director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, an advocacy group in Washington.

In announcing the hiring last fall, Google’s senior policy counsel, Andrew McLaughlin described the company’s Washington mission in terms he acknowledged sounded “a little high and mighty.” Writing on the company’s blog, McLaughlin said Google would “defend the Internet as a free and open platform for information, communication and innovation.”

Google arrived with some liabilities. Republicans are still rankled that, although they’re the party in power, Google employees give almost all their campaign checks to Democrats.

Contributions from high-tech companies often tilt Democratic, in large part because their employees are concentrated in liberal-leaning locales such as Silicon Valley and Seattle. Even so, no other major Internet or computer company has tilted so far to the left.

In the 2004 election cycle, Google employees gave 99% of their $251,679 in contributions to Democrats. Sun Microsystems Inc. was next among the top 20 companies with 76% going to Democrats, followed by IBM Corp. at 71% and Yahoo Inc. at 63%, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The tech industry average is 54% to Democrats and 46% to Republicans.

In the 2006 election cycle, Google has barely changed -- Democrats are getting 96% of its campaign money.

“You don’t want to get a reputation for being in the pocket of one party, especially when it’s not the party in power,” White said. Republicans control the White House and Congress, where GOP leaders and committee leaders determine the fate of most legislation.

Given Google’s relatively small political giving -- Microsoft gave 13 times more than it in 2004 -- the ratios could be fixed easily with some strategic contributions to Republicans from Google top executives or a company political action committee, Washington veterans said.

Google has yet to do either.

Davidson would not say whether Google was considering setting up a political action committee, and said employees were free to give as they chose.

“We are not a partisan presence in Washington,” he said. “We have a very savvy executive team that understands the importance of Washington and we’re committed to building a long-term presence here.”

The company raised more Republican eyebrows this spring by hiring a former Clinton administration aide, Robert O. Boorstin -- not to lobby, but to do corporate communications in Washington. But politicians don’t always make such organizational-chart distinctions.

“Everyone said, ‘Wait a minute. When are these guys going to get it?’ ” said one high-tech lobbyist, who asked not to be named to avoid publicly criticizing Google.

Davidson is a Democrat and had hired only a junior employee and a support person. Republicans expected Google’s next major Washington hire to be a Republican and had passed on the names of potential candidates.

Google appears to have gotten the message. On Friday it announced the hiring of Bush White House aide Jamie E. Brown for a senior position in Washington.

Google also has shown more political savvy in hiring outside lobbying and consulting firms. Among them: PodestaMattoon, whose staff includes a former top Republican congressional aide and the son of House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.); and DCI Group, whose leadership include a one-time top aide to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

Jerry Berman, Davidson’s former boss at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said Google was on a traditional tech-industry learning curve in Washington and should not be criticized for trying to hire the best staff. But in trying to find its way in Washington, Google sometimes has stepped into a common high-tech industry trap: thinking that because the best technology usually wins in the marketplace, the best argument will prevail in Washington.

Elliot Schrage, Google’s vice president for global communications and public affairs, learned that was not always the case. Called before a House subcommittee in February to address Internet censorship in China, Schrage tried to answer hostile questions while executives from Yahoo, Cisco Systems Inc. and Microsoft just stuck to their talking points.

As a result, Schrage was the person prominently featured in news coverage of the hearing, leading to bad publicity for a company whose informal motto is “Don’t be evil.”

On Net neutrality, Google got another lesson when it teamed up with Microsoft and Yahoo to try to persuade Congress to prevent phone and cable companies from charging extra to move data-heavy applications on their networks. The argument was simple: erecting what amounts to toll lanes on the Internet would stifle the egalitarian spirit that has made it thrive.

Company executives delivered their message in letters and at congressional hearings, but didn’t press their case as strongly face-to-face on Capitol Hill as the phone and cable companies, Net neutrality supporters said.

“Congress doesn’t always go with the best argument,” said Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Atherton), who represents part of Silicon Valley.

Eshoo and other House Democratic supporters of Net neutrality became so frustrated with the Internet companies’ inability to gain traction on the issue that they intentionally sought a subcommittee vote on the issue in April, knowing they’d lose badly. The loss had the intended effect, said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) -- jolting many bloggers and grass-roots groups into action. It also woke up Google and other Internet companies to the hard work needed on the issue, he said.

The companies have responded recently, Markey said, but they need to work harder. Some Net neutrality supporters want Google to try to rally its millions of users by posting a message on its home page.

Davidson said that was not Google’s style.

“I think everybody understands that people are not necessarily looking for political messages when they visit their favorite Internet site,” he said.

But Gigi B. Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a Washington-based technology advocacy group supporting Net neutrality, said that attitude showed Google’s political inexperience -- an unwillingness to fight “fire with fire” in battling the phone and cable companies.

“The regulated companies have been dealing with the government ... for 100 years. It’s in their blood,” Sohn said. “The Silicon Valley companies, they’d rather not deal with Washington. But in reality, they have to.”