Titans of Tech Sign On With Feinstein
In Silicon Valley, home to almost 10% of America’s millionaires, high-tech executives take as unconventional a view toward politics as they do toward business. And that attitude, pragmatic to the end, is being demonstrated in California’s most important political race this year.
A bipartisan committee of high-tech executives has thrown early and significant support to incumbent Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein. The group includes Republican John Chambers of computer networking giant Cisco Systems Inc.--who is among the state’s biggest backers of GOP presidential front-runner George W. Bush. Chambers, who two years ago supported Democrat Gray Davis for California governor, will co-chair the committee with another well-known Silicon Valley leader, John Doerr, co-chairman of the industry’s bipartisan lobbying group, Technology Network.
Clearly, it makes simple political sense not to alienate a powerful U.S. senator as crucial technology-related issues, from taxation to regulatory oversight, make their way through Congress. “She’s going to win,” said one Silicon Valley Republican, “and sometimes leadership means picking the winner.”
But the show of support for Feinstein is noteworthy, coming about two months before the primary--in which she faces no major challenge--and almost a year before the general election. What’s more, Feinstein, hardly known as a champion of high-tech issues in Congress, won the endorsement in a sector--business--that Republicans once considered their own.
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“The [Chambers] endorsement is huge for Feinstein,” said the Silicon Valley Republican. “Chambers has star power and is a real leader in the community.” And it is significant, the insider said, that Chambers “is one of the first to say to the high-tech community: ‘You have to be engaged in this race.’ ”
Another observer concurred: “I think what you see with these endorsements is a signal, if anyone needs one, that Dianne is OK.”
That assessment is sweet music to Feinstein’s campaign, which promises to unveil more prominent GOP supporters in coming weeks.
“They are going to form the nucleus of people who are in the business community and high-tech community who support Dianne Feinstein’s reelection,” said campaign spokesman Kam Kuwata. “I think it is important to demonstrate that in some of the more traditional strongholds for any Republican challenger . . . people in the business world are for Feinstein.”
Feinstein has not been generally identified with the industry’s issues. “She doesn’t know anything about high-tech,” said one Silicon Valley Republican.
Kuwata called that characterization misleading. “California has many diverse interests and this is a senator who has been an advocate for all of California,” he said. “I don’t think you can pigeonhole her and ask, ‘Does she work on high-tech issues? Or . . . labor issues? Or gun-control issues? Or [other] issues,’ ” said Kuwata. “I think Dianne is a senator who is working on a wide range of issues.”
Chambers’ endorsement flowed from his support for Feinstein’s efforts in the areas of high-tech commerce and education such as continuing U.S. work visa programs for technologically skilled foreigners, according to Kuwata and a spokesman for Chambers, who could not be reached for comment.
“John feels that Sen. Feinstein has been, number one, a leader in issues that relate to the Internet. She understands that the growth of the Internet is at the center of the current economic boom, and she understands the importance of continuing the economic boom,” said Kent Jenkins, Cisco’s spokesman in Washington, D.C.
“Also, John is personally very passionate about education reform, and Sen. Feinstein has been a leader in that area,” Jenkins said.
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The crossover support will probably fall hardest on U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell, the moderate Silicon Valley Republican who championed the blanket primary that allows California voters of any party to cast ballots for any candidate. He is considered the front-runner among several contenders for the GOP nomination.
“This shows it is a free-for-all [in terms of support], and Campbell is just going to have to fight for it,” said one Silicon Valley Republican.
Campbell could not be reached for comment. But his campaign spokesman, Suhail Khan, said the support of the Chambers group underscores the pragmatic, not partisan, nature of the region.
“We have historically been getting a lot of support . . . in the high-tech community, but we have never claimed to have a lock on every one of them,” Khan said.
Indeed, Khan said, Campbell has lined up his own list of Silicon Valley backers. While most of them, like Technology Network Co-Chairman Jim Barksdale, are Republicans, they include Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy, an independent who observers say rarely endorses candidates.
One high-tech official said it remains to be seen how much sway the declarations of support hold with the industry’s fast-moving legions of bright, high-income managers.
“I think the wild card is that since the last presidential race, there has been virtually a whole new generation of workers who are in prominent positions [with high-tech companies],” said the official. “I think they will get involved [in politics], and it will be interesting to see how they go.”
Pending those results, said another high-tech official, the recent endorsements demonstrate that Silicon Valley leaders want “people who govern from the middle.”
