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Silicon Valley gets political
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September 18, 2000: 10:13 a.m. ET
Bush proving to be serious competition in long-held Democratic territory
By Staff Writer Hope Hamashige
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - When the pace of technology flies faster than your Porsche and you're desperately trying to maintain your first mover advantage, are you really going to set aside time to get to know your congressman? Worse yet, get involved in politics?
Most likely out of sheer necessity, the high-tech world is taking an interest -- and increasingly an active role -- in determining who will be the next president of the United States. Yes, it's a commitment of time they don't have, but the once too-busy-making-money-to-be bothered set has realized that they risk a whole lot more by not being involved in the political process.
From Silicon Valley in the West to Silicon Alley in the East, it's been a year of unprecedented splashy fundraising events and meetings with candidates. Texas Gov. George W. Bush has been feted by Cisco (CSCO: Research, Estimates) CEO John Chambers at his California home. Many Silicon Alley execs paid up to $1,000 a head to attend a star-studded fundraiser for Vice President Al Gore at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on Thursday, featuring performances by Jon Bon Jovi, Bette Midler, Sheryl Crow and Macy Gray, and Lenny Kravitz.
Jerry Colonna, managing partner of New York venture capital firm Flatiron Partners, said there is definitely a new attitude among Silicon Alley executives about getting involved in politics. Colonna, who recently hosted a fundraiser in New York City for Hillary Clinton, described the involvement as "educational."
"We're trying to inform them on issues that are important to us," he said, "and we're also learning a lot about ways they can help us out."
Someone who gets it
Past scuffles between high tech and the federal government, over issues such as data encryption, came about in part because legislators weren't well-educated on the subject. The current courtship under way, and the  establishment of lobbying groups such as the Network Advertising Initiative or TechNet, is an attempt to avoid future conflicts and keep leaders aware of the high tech agenda.
The agenda is moving as rapidly as new technology. That's right. It's not just about visas for high-tech workers and research and development tax credits anymore. On the plate these days is an expanding list of potential battles over privacy protection, Internet taxation, intellectual property rights, changes in accounting rules affecting stock options, telecommunications legislation, patents for gene sequences and the inevitable debate over file-sharing technology.
None of the issues fall clearly into either the camp of the Democrats or the Republicans. The candidate who eventually will get the votes will have to come down on the right side of the issues.
But techies demand more. They want a candidate who actually gets it. Someone who understands that the Napster trial is not just about the evil things college students do at night, but is really about regulating a technology that has uses far beyond downloading music files.
Highlighting the greater involvement of high tech in politics, information collected by the Center for Responsive Politics, contributions from the computer industry to all federal campaigns during the 2000 political cycle more than doubled since the 1996 presidential campaign.
So far, computer products and services industries have donated about $20.2 million to campaigns in 2000, compared with $8.9 million in 1996. Democrats have a slight edge, 53 percent to 46 percent, over Republicans in raising money from computer companies.
Who's more tech savvy?
Gov. Bush, as part of his campaign strategy, assembled a group of high-tech advisers. Initially comprising a handful of individuals, it has grown to nearly  400 and includes high profile names like Chambers, former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale and Michael Dell, a fellow Texan.
Bush spokesman Tucker Eskew said the group meets regularly with Bush to fine-tune the candidate's platform. Though high tech, and particularly Silicon Valley, has long been considered Democratic territory, Eskew said Bush is attractive to techies because he comes from a state that has a strong technological center in Austin. Also, like other businesses, Bush is promoting a platform of less regulation and lower taxes that should appeal to any business.
Gore, too, has gained the support of high technology leaders like Netscape co-founder Marc Andreesen and MCI Senior Vice President Vinton Cerf, the co-designer of the computer language that gave birth to the Internet. Cerf is now a senior vice president at MCI WorldCom (WCOM: Research, Estimates) and is chairman of the Internet Society.
Both give Gore credit for making significant achievements, both while serving in the U.S. Senate and as vice president, that helped make some of the important technological advances of the late 20th century possible.
Andreesen has noted that a bill Gore sponsored while in the Senate, called the High Performance Computing Act, allowed him to receive a federal grant while he was a student at the University of Illinois. The work Andreesen undertook during that period ultimately led to the creation of the Mosaic browser.
Some things in common
A superficial glance at their high tech agendas reveals the candidates do come down on the same side of the issues more than once. Both Bush and Gore promise to make permanent the research and development tax credit, to crack down on piracy of U.S. intellectual property, to make cyberspace a worldwide tariff-free zone, protect consumers' privacy and to finally close the digital divide.
Both sides argue, however, over who is really positioned to deliver on these promises. High tech wants someone who understands them, who understands technology and the frantic, fast-paced world they work in.
In the end, they may go with the one who admits he loves downloading music from the Internet or is unusually dependent on his Palm Pilot. 
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