Google CEO Eric Schmidt spoke to a gathering of Republican governors on Wednesday and offered them excellent advice on how Republicans can turn things around by the 2008 presidential race: take advantage of the Internet’s electioneering power.
“The ones that take advantage of this most effectively will be the ones that will be the winners of the next election,” Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt told Republican governors gathered in Miami.
Of course, Google’s newly acquired YouTube was Schmidt’s shining example. Schmidt cited the damage done to Rep. John Murtha (R-PA) and Senator George Allen (R-VA) by embarassing YouTube videos, as well as election losses for ruling Sunni Islamists inflicted by Shiite opposition candidates in Bahrain due to Google Earth videos showing the lavish homes of the country’s ruling families. (Bet few of our readers were aware of that last example of the power of the Internet to damage political leaders.)
The real question is: why was Eric Schmidt giving advice to Republicans? Google is a famously Democratic-leaning company, a political liability that the search giant only recently tried to rectify when the Republicans had a hammerlock on Washington. Now that the Dems are on the rise, is Schmidt still playing by the company’s revised political strategy to woo more Republicans? Or does Google just like underdogs?
Moreover, according to this tally, of the $245,716 donated by Schmidt to political candidates since 1994. The vast majority of the amount, $219,216, or 89%, went to Democrats.
Cynthia Brumfield at 2:13 PM|Comments(0)
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