Silicon Valley looks to Obama

Silicon Valley leaders whose endorsements have been key in past presidential races give Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton high marks, but say there is little to learn about her candidacy. Instead, they have bubbling curiosity about her fellow 2008 contender, Sen. Barack Obama.

“He’s a once-in-a-generation talent. He’s just the real deal,” said Jude Barry, longtime Silicon Valley political observer who founded Obama for America. “He’s not well known here but he will take off like a hot IPO.”

Translation: Local insiders who track stock deals and initial public offerings the way Washingtonians follow politics have growing interest in the Illinois Democrat. Many of them think Mr. Obama could be Silicon Valley’s next new thing.

Mrs. Clinton, New York Democrat, who spent time in the valley during her husband’s two terms as president, is a known commodity and is still the liberal Bay Area’s presumptive favorite. But in California’s innovation hotbed, investors, executives and valley politicians are always looking for new blood.

Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone has been a force in Democratic politics for decades, and prides himself on his early endorsement of Bill Clinton in 1990.

When former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner opted against running this cycle, Mr. Stone was left in what he describes as a “confusing dilemma.”

“In my younger days I was about ideology, now I am just about winning,” he said. “I like Hillary a lot and I know her the best of everybody, but I just question whether she can win.”

Mr. Obama is courting Mr. Stone, and asked him recently what it would take to “make this deal.”

It’s a good question for Mr. Stone, who says Mrs. Clinton would be a good president but concedes that probably isn’t enough to embrace her for 2008: “She clearly has it together but it just doesn’t seem to excite people.”

That sentiment echoes throughout the valley.

Mr. Barry, Howard Dean’s state director in California in 2004, started the Obama group without ever meeting the senator and raised $30,000 in a matter of hours.

“I was surprised at how easy it was, and it portends great things for him out here,” said Mr. Barry, once the spokesman for former San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales.

Given Mr. Obama’s anti-war stance and appeal to youth, Mr. Barry predicts the first-term senator will break all of Mr. Dean’s online fundraising records.

“Obama really has a buzz in the valley because he’s something new,” agreed Victor Arranaga, a longtime San Jose political fixture who works in government affairs for a major tech firm.

Mr. Obama got an early endorsement from former state Controller Steve Westly, a Democrat who made his name as an EBay leader.

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