Why I Decided to Pay Attention to Politics
By Stewart Alsop

(FORTUNE Magazine) – I contributed $1,000 to the campaigns of Both Bill Bradley and George W. Bush. A reporter at the Wall Street Journal picked this up and called to find out why I was working both sides of the street. He was writing a story about how people in Silicon Valley are new to politics and can't really make up their minds.

Personally, I felt as if I got nailed! I've never contributed to a political campaign before, and I got caught my very first time out! In fact, I thought I was just buying a really expensive dinner (from Bradley) and a really expensive breakfast (from Bush), and never quite considered the fact that these were actually campaign contributions. And here this reporter calls up out of the blue and wants to know why I am playing both sides! As if I had thought it through and had a well-prepared position paper.

I've been telling this story to people since it happened a couple of months ago, and I've discovered something new: People in Silicon Valley are paying attention to the presidential campaign. For the first time. And I'm one of them.

For full disclosure, a couple of things about me are odd. First, I was a journalist for nearly 20 years. My father was Washington editor for Newsweek and the Saturday Evening Post, and felt that his personal opinions should remain private, since a journalist's job is to observe and comment on behalf of the reader. I adopted that position. So I didn't contribute to political campaigns. (Of course, I never had the money to go buying meals for $1,000 a pop either.) Second, I grew up in Washington, D.C., the world capital of politics. So I've been jaded about politics and politicians ever since I was a boy, probably even more jaded than your average baby-boomer. When I moved to Silicon Valley in 1983, I felt a certain amount of relief at getting away from that East Coast macho political nonsense: You know, all those people living inside the Washington Beltway, in the Boston Hub (where I lived before moving to California), and of course, in the Big Apple, who seem to think that life begins and ends where they live. When you live in California, you know you're not important. The election is decided before you can get to Starbucks and wake up enough to make it to the polls. "Prime time" events show up on your TV at 5 p.m. And an earthquake could wipe you out at any moment. So just get in your RV and enjoy!

Now, that's characteristic of everyone's view of Silicon Valley: a bunch of nerds working away at their jobs, hoping to strike it rich on options by starting companies, who largely assume that the East Coast macho stuff is irrelevant to real life in the modern world. In other words, Who cares who's President or governor or Senator, since those politicians have no idea what we're cooking up here in Silicon Valley or how it's going to change the way we govern ourselves anyway?

But life in Silicon Valley is changing. Here's why:

1. There is a lot of money in Silicon Valley. Money has a peculiar effect on people. If you're working hard for a salary that pays the rent and maybe lets you play around a little, then it's just money. But the first time you exercise your options and then sell the shares, you find out just how much money the government will take away from you, and you start wondering what it is they're doing in Washington that's worth that much dough. A lot of nerds have been earning and selling shares and discovering that they have a lot of money. They're beginning to care about taxes. They're beginning to care about just how the country is governed.

2. The presidential campaigners know there's a lot of money in Silicon Valley. About a year ago, before we knew for sure that he would take on Al Gore for the Democratic nomination, Bill Bradley came to visit our venture capital firm. He spent a year at Stanford University and visited a lot of venture capital firms. He was way ahead of the pack, as he often is. In fact, he used his presence in Silicon Valley to raise more than $1 million from that dinner for which I paid $1,000. He's been an unusually successful fundraiser out here. Now these things are getting to be a regular event: Governor Bush, Senator McCain, and even Vice President Gore have discovered Silicon Valley and the need to make sure rich nerds like them. All this attention kind of goes to your head.

3. The campaigners are about our age. I don't mean to ignore Generations X, Y, or Z, but the guys running for President are just about the same age as us baby-boomers. It's as though we've arrived when people our age start wanting to run the country. You have to consider whether you would be able to do the same job. (Don't worry.)

4. Technology has changed our lives. This is what is really cool. Technology has become broad enough and important enough that it has actually changed our lives, changed our workplace, and changed the way politics works. Anybody who wants to run the country--just like anyone who runs a major company or a venture-financed startup--has to personally know about and understand technology. (For more on this, see my article earlier in this issue, "E or Be Eaten.")

The Wall Street Journal was right, by the way. I hadn't made up my mind. I needed to see and hear Senator Bradley speak, and then see and hear Governor Bush. And I've spent the past six months trying to figure out what I believe (given that I had already narrowed the choice to just those two). Like a lot of baby-boomers, I don't much care which party they belong to, since parties seem to morph to accommodate whatever is happening during the campaign. But I do care about their economic principles, their understanding of how technology is changing society, their view of how our country fits into the world, and their ability to see how to shore up our fundamental principles regarding an educated population, individual freedom, and individual responsibility. And I also care how well their Websites are designed. I love the Bradley Store at www.billbradley.com! But it wasn't enough to make me vote for the man. I decided my views are more in line with the Governor's, and I'm planning to vote for Bush.

So now I've lost my virginity: I've not only been caught making a contribution to two presidential campaigns but have also declared myself in public. My father must be turning in his grave.

STEWART ALSOP is a partner with New Enterprise Associates, a venture capital firm. Except as noted, neither he nor his partnership has a financial interest in the companies mentioned. His column may be bookmarked online at www.fortune.com/technology/alsop/.