While Google is officially neutral, CEO Eric Schmidt is campaigning this week on behalf of Barack Obama. This will be his “first time on the trail;” he says this is a “natural evolution” from his role as an informal adviser to the Obama campaign.
At The Machinist Cyrus Farivar notes:
Schmidt is the second high-ranking Googler to make such an endorsement, with Vint “I actually co-invented the Internet” Cerf making a similar endorsement last week.
But the question remains: What does Google or Schmidt himself stand to gain from backing Obama? Probably quite a bit.
Aside from being the text-message candidate, and the video game ad candidate, it’s clear that Obama fundamentally understands technology like you and I do, and not like Grandpa McCain is trying to. That’s why Obama said, way back in November 2007, that he wants to create a Cabinet-level position of chief technology officer.
So who might fill that spot? Business Week has come up with a Short List for U.S. Chief Technology Officer. Cerf’s on it:
Among the candidates who would be considered for the job, say Washington insiders, are Vint Cerf, Google’s (GOOG) “chief internet evangelist,” who is often cited as one of the fathers of the Internet; Microsoft (MSFT) chief executive officer Steve Ballmer; Amazon (AMZN) CEO Jeffrey Bezos; and Ed Felten, a prominent professor of computer science and public affairs at Princeton University. An Obama campaign spokesman did not return phone calls seeking comment about potential CTO candidates.
TechCrunch has a poll up asking Who Should Be CTO of the USA? (At this writing, Larry Lessig’s in the lead.)
WORTH REMEMBERING — Last summer Timothy Lee at TechDirt wondered, do we need a national CTO? While Back in February when Steve Kroft asked Obama on 60 Minutes about his lack of executive experience, he compared himself to Google:
“Well, I’ve run my Senate office. And I’ve run this campaign,” the senator replied. “One of the interesting things about this experience argument is that it’s often posed as just a function of longevity. You know, ‘I’ve been here longer.’ Well, you know there are a lot of companies that have been around longer than Google…but Google’s performing.”