Westly biding his time

Sitting in his office in the capitol of Silicon Valley venture capital -- that would be the Menlo Park powerhouse complex of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers -- Steve Westly, the former Democratic controller, looks very much in the political and high-tech mix these days.

Westly has been talking, meeting, coordinating with a wildly varied crowd lately; witness the small Atherton gathering he attended not long ago that brought together rock singer Bono, Google gurus Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and venture capital guru John Doerr, among others, to talk up clean technology and global warming issues. His take: "Bono is so saavy, and he cuts through the cynicism ... because he doesn't have to be doing this."

And Westly definitely still has his hand in politics: He's a state co-chair for Sen. Barack Obama's Democratic presidential run and excited these days to be making calls and getting checks for his presidential candidate, who he says "represents the politics of a new generation."

"I believe politics is the art of inspiring people," Westly says. "He's connecting in away that others don't do."

Westly is among a high-tech crowd paving the way for Obama in California - among them, former San Francisco Bar Association head Jeff Bleich, venture capitalist Mark Gorenberg, Silicon Valley insider Wade Randlett and John Roos of the Wilson Sonsini law firm. "Every time he comes, it's been huge," says Westly of the Illinois senator's campaign fundraising.

In a week in which other presidential candidates (GOPers John McCain, Mitt Romney) are here in the Golden State raising money in high-priced fundraisers -- but not actually meeting real voters -- Westly says thousands may turn out to see Obama's free Oakland City Hall rally this Saturday (gates open at 3 p.m.). The candidate then hits the Mark Hopkins Hotel for a big evening fundraiser.

Apart from his help on Obama's campaign, Westly is doing a range of work on "clean tech" investing, including sitting on the board of San Carlos-based Tesla Motors, which produces the $92,000 Tesla Roadster -- the 100 percent electric, 0-to-60 in four-seconds sports car -- whose 2008 models hits the market later this year.

"Hybrids are great, but that's a transitional step," Westly says. "People want to know: Where is the zero emissions vehicle?"

And he's got his PAC -- the California Leadership Committee -- up and running with the aim of boosting the warchests of promising new political leaders. He cites Eric Garcetti, a Rhodes scholar and president of the Los Angeles City Council; Kamala Harris, San Francisco district attorney (another key California Obama supporter) and San Francisco Supervisor Bevin Dufty as examples.

But what about his own political future? Is there a campaign for governor for Westly out there in 2010?

"I love what I'm doing," Westly says with a big smile -- as he heads out to a TV interview.

Note to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Attorney General Jerry Brown, Treasurer Bill Lockyer and anyone else on the Democratic side who might be considering a run at the governor's seat in the future: Westly promises we'll be seeing him "a lot."

Valley high-tech giants playing bigger role in presidential race
From Mary Anne Ostrom, San Jose Mercury News, March 12, 2007

Just after the start of the new year, eBay's Meg Whitman, CEO of a company worth $42 billion, headed to Boston to spend a day making phone calls asking people for money for Mitt Romney's presidential bid.

Instead of lending her influential name to political bids, she used to simply sit in California and write checks.

With the early dawn of a wide-open presidential contest for both parties, the stakes have grown. More candidates are vying not only for high-tech cash, but the cool-factor that comes with hanging out with iPod-generation icons. And new-economy titans have learned the importance of getting in the game early to promote their priorities with a potential president and shape the de Certainly, big tech names still host fundraisers in hotel ballrooms and at their wooded Peninsula estates. But they now also fly across country for campaign events and arrange high-profile media events to push their agendas. This week, Cisco Systems Chief Executive John Chambers and Kleiner Perkins venture capitalist John Doerr are headlining a Washington event to roll out an ambitious clean-tech agenda.

The likelihood of an early California primary also has accelerated the arrival of a long list of presidential contestants, who have been hopscotching from high-tech boardrooms to living-room fundraisers since the new year and earlier. The payoffs can be good.

Consider that raising $1 million in the valley used to require a swank fundraiser with dinner. Contributors at least were guaranteed a photo op with the candidate. On Feb. 5, John Roos, CEO of powerhouse valley law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, raised $300,000 just from his living room. The candidate, Barack Obama, wasn't even there; he just called in for about 20 minutes.

"The fundamental reality of politics is in order to run a credible presidential campaign it takes millions and millions of dollars," said Roos, an experienced fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidates. "And Silicon Valley has awakened to the power of influence it has in public policy."

Business leaders, too, find their status as tech gurus is drawing candidates who seek endorsements. Getting a nod from Google CEO Eric Schmidt, a major Democratic player who hosted Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton at company headquarters recently, but has not endorsed a candidate, or Cisco's Chambers, a Republican who has signed on with Sen. John McCain, translates to some that the candidate is cutting-edge.

"Technology is so central to voters' lives with e-mail, PDAs and blogs," said Bruce Mehlman, a former Bush administration tech policy adviser who now runs the Technology CEO Council.

But beyond cash and cachet, candidates have come to tap valley intellect to tackle mega-issues of globalization and the environment as they begin to create their platforms.

It's not that the basic equation has changed all that much since a young Arkansas governor was shepherded around the valley in the early 1990s. But the stakes have increased exponentially since Bill Clinton met with tech executives at the Cupertino Inn and ate with them at Los Gatos' California Cafe.

Then, starting about a decade ago, leading valley CEOs began getting over the fear that combining politicking and business was bad. Today, they seek out the national political limelight.

Wade Randlett, who worked with Doerr to line up support for the 1996 Clinton-Gore ticket, said that was "the last cycle where the ethos was don't get involved, politics get CEOs fired." Where it took months in 1996 to line up 125 technology executives to sign on, "today I could get 1,025 without breaking a sweat." Randlett is fundraising for the Obama campaign.

Ensuring a steady diet of local appearances by candidates, several Republican and Democratic leaders with national stature already are playing key roles in several 2008 campaigns. On the Republican side, Cisco's Chambers has been named national finance co-chairman of the McCain campaign. Influential fundraiser and venture capitalist Floyd Kvamme is backing former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who also now counts Hoover Institution fellow and noted economist Michael Boskin as an adviser. And Whitman, a friend and former colleague of Romney at business consulting firm Bain & Co., is chairing his first Bay Area tech-industry fundraiser in Burlingame on Wednesday.

On the Democratic side, former state controller and eBay executive Steve Westly is backing Obama. Clinton is counting on support from a network of female valley leaders and is working her husband's long list of valley friends. Former Sen. John Edwards has the backing of venture capitalist Andrew Rappaport and his wife, Deborah, who have emerged as national players among progressive Democrats.

Still, it's early, and other major leaders, notably Doerr of Kleiner Perkins and Apple CEO Steve Jobs, have yet to say whom they are supporting.

The growing political ties come as tech leaders seek greater influence on a broad array of issues, including immigration, education and energy independence.

"The difference in the past is candidates solely came to make withdrawals from the bank of Silicon Valley," said Carl Guardino, CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. "Now they also are interested in making a deposit, hearing our concerns on policy and engaging in it rather than solely political fundraising."

Clinton adviser Harold Ickes, once Bill Clinton's deputy chief of staff, met with Guardino shortly before she made her visit in late February.

"If she wants to know about the valley, all she has to do is roll over and ask her husband," quipped Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone, one of President Clinton's initial Silicon Valley guides in advance of his 1992 election.

"If you look at the results," said Lezlee Westine, executive director of influential lobbying group TechNet, "you can see the fruits of the labor." Tech-industry priorities such as making the United States more globally competitive and clean energy are now front and center in Washington. Westine, herself, was tapped from TechNet to work in the Bush White House.

But being an economic visionary or technology icon doesn't guarantee instant success in the rough-and-tumble world of Washington politics. Republicans who worked on the Bush campaign say their ideas were adopted slowly. And while many of the Democrats say they generally embrace new-economy agendas, their backers worry about Americans losing jobs to overseas workers and fear unfettered free trade will hurt the world's environment.

Lessons are being heeded to start early. "It's hard to get things done unless it's done as part of the campaign pitch in the stump speech," said Kvamme, who was a chief Bush fundraiser and then named to a key technology post in the White House.

In this campaign cycle it's the technology itself that may change the balance of power.

"All of the speculation about where John Chambers is or Steve Jobs is isn't as important, especially among the blogger world," said Mehlman, whose job is to represent technology CEOs.

Instead, he predicts, it's the rank-and-file tech workers, the ones who read blogs, watch YouTube videos and have MySpace accounts, who will exert more influence as king makers.

"They can be much more influential in the end. They are playing a grass-roots role enabled by the very tools they help pioneer."