Is Silicon Valley A Political Incubator?
NationalJournal.com’s David Herbert writes that Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial spirit has given us personal computers, iPods and Google. What the sun-drenched tech capital hasn’t produced is a political heavyweight — a fact that California gubernatorial hopefuls Meg Whitman (R) and Steve Poizner (R) are hoping to change next year. Before Whitman, former eBay CEO, and Poizner, a former tech executive turned state insurance commissioner, the only tech whizzes to jump into statewide politics were engineer and former Rep. Ed Zschau (R), who lost his bid for Senate in 1986, and former eBay executive Steve Westly (D), who served as state controller for four years but lost his 2006 bid for governor. Whitman and Poizner are treading on unfamiliar ground, to be sure. But are they blazing a trail for more Valley crossovers or are they merely two more footnotes in the Valley’s thin political history? One thing is for certain: Silicon Valley has begun to throw its immense wealth around. Read th
