American History 1988
Chapter 213 - 207 Political Broker

Chapter 213: Chapter 207 Political Broker

Larry Stone was the senator of Sunnyvale City, and being in Silicon Valley, he was exceedingly passionate about praising the development of high-tech enterprises.

"Everyone is riding the high-tech surfboard," Larry Stone once proclaimed to reporters.

But after Old Bush was elected in ’88, Larry Stone also felt gloomy about the future of Silicon Valley.

"Some changes have taken place here, and with them comes the realization that our community is not what it should be or what we originally thought," he said.

Larry Stone published his gloomy comments in the newspapers; he was a Democratic Party power broker, and Old Bush was a Republican.

He even listed a slew of examples to prove the White House’s inaction toward Silicon Valley.

For instance, the once red-hot local industries had cooled down, and those who had paid high prices for Silicon Valley farms and bungalows were now finding they could hardly afford their mortgages.

Personal computers weren’t getting government support, and the market saturation only intensified the pain.

The factories around Silicon Valley were slowly reducing their output, and workers were facing the risk of unemployment, among other things.

What was most important to Larry Stone was the discovery that Silicon Valley had lost its advocates in Congress.

Ed Schau, whom they had pushed for a few years ago, had now almost disappeared from the scene.

In ’86, he had challenged the incumbent senator, Alan Cranston, and although he had won some districts, he unfortunately lost in the total vote count.

Moreover, Regis McKenna, another political spokesperson from Silicon Valley, had become enemies with Ed Schau.

They attacked each other, accusing one another in the newspapers in a manner far removed from the usual joy and amity of Silicon Valley.

In Larry Stone’s view, Silicon Valley was now just a loose assembly of parts.

This Democratic Party power broker had also lost his own clients, and the East Coast began to point fingers at this place as if watching a joke.

Now, the year was ’91, and the next year was an election year. Larry Stone rekindled his fighting spirit, wanting to change the embarrassing political status of Silicon Valley.

Full of passion, he began actively searching for the next Democratic Party spokesperson, but after a round of searching, he realized he was most familiar with Jerry Brown, right at his doorstep.

Larry Stone didn’t like this "Moonbeam Governor," who had focused all his energy on his wild ideas, with hardly any enthusiasm for Silicon Valley, much less Hollywood.

But since he was one of the most promising candidates of the Democratic Party, Larry Stone prepared to hold his nose and wave the flag for this "Moonbeam Governor."

Silicon Valley needed a suitable candidate, especially when most of the CEOs here were supporters of the Republican Party, a Democratic spokesperson was even rarer.

But just before he took action, Larry received an unexpected phone call.

The caller identified himself as Craig Smith, a political aide to the Governor of Arkansas.

"Larry, Mr. Clinton is planning to visit Silicon Valley next Thursday. Can you help organize a fundraising event?" Smith’s voice was full of apology. "It’s very difficult for us to attract people to such events."

Larry Stone glanced at the calendar and felt his heart sink.

He had a ticket for a baseball game that day, featuring the Oakland Athletics.

It was a good time to be an A’s fan. The Oakland Athletics had a strong chance of winning the MLB World Series.

Larry Stone didn’t want to miss a spectacular game for a southern governor with slim chances of winning.

But as a loyal member of the Democratic Party, and after much deliberation and Smith’s earnest pleading, Larry reluctantly agreed.

After hanging up the phone, Larry sighed and then began to flip through his address book.

Running for election wasn’t just about talking or shouting slogans on the street.

A campaign is a long process, from party primaries to the national electoral vote, taking at least ten months.

And if you add the pre-campaign phase, the time is even longer.

As a New Yorker journalist put it, "Some women could have had two children by that time."

So, to run for election, putting aside other connections for a moment, you first need enough funds.

During this process, you need to hire staff, produce campaign slogans and posters, arrange speech venues, broadcast radio and TV ads, and so on.

And none of these promotional activities can happen without financial support; in the ’60s, the elections saw the two parties spend tens of millions of US dollars for their candidates.

It’s the ’90s now, and based on Larry’s recent observations of the national committee within the party, next year’s election campaign funds for both parties could very likely reach the level of hundreds of millions of US dollars.

Such astronomical spending couldn’t possibly be covered by the candidates themselves; most of it would have to come from supporters’ donations.

Money given directly to the candidates, known as "hard money," is strictly regulated, and not everyone is qualified to donate.

According to federal law, unions, commercial companies, and banks are permanently banned from donating to federal campaigns.

At the same time, the amount of individual donations is also strictly limited, with any individual limited to a $1,000 donation to a single candidate in a year, and a total political donation cap of $25,000 per individual per year.

The purpose of these regulations is for the legislative body to limit the influence of large donors and corporations on public policy through candidates who have benefited from them.

But where there is "hard money," there is also "soft money."

"Hard money" is strictly regulated, but "soft money" takes advantage of loopholes in the rules and has started to flourish.

The so-called "soft money" refers to funds that are not directly allocated to a specific candidate.

Since I can’t donate to someone, why not set up an organization specifically to cheer them on?

Thus, Political Action Committees emerged, which specifically advocate for certain candidates but are not directly connected to them.

For instance, if a campaign advertisement outright says, "Please vote for someone," that expenditure would be classified as "hard money."

But if it’s merely promoting a candidate’s ideas or attacking their opponent,

and doesn’t explicitly persuade people to vote for a particular candidate, then the money is considered "soft money."

Guess what federal law has to say about "soft money"? The answer is quite obvious; there is no cap on the use of "soft money."

The political assistant to the Governor of Arkansas, Smith, said that they were having difficulties with fundraising, and now Larry Stone needed to find them "soft money."

Without a doubt, Silicon Valley’s "soft money" lies in the pockets of tech company executives or venture capital investors.

Larry Stone’s address book contained most of their names, and he began to call them as usual based on how close he was to each.

"Andy, there’s a political outreach event next Thursday evening. Are you interested?"

Calling it a fundraising dinner might be too direct, so Larry Stone wisely rephrased it.

However, Andy Grove of Intel is a smart man; he knew what the so-called political speech implied.

"Who is the keynote speaker?"

"The Governor of Arkansas, Clinton," Larry Stone said as he flipped open his calendar, preparing to search for the next Oakland Athletics game day.

"Democratic Party?" Andy Grove lost interest at once.

"Andy, listen, Bill advocates for providing more support to the tech industry. That’s good for Silicon Valley, isn’t it?"

As a political broker, Larry Stone could slip into the role of a middleman at any moment.

However, his enthusiastic sales pitch didn’t bring about a passionate response from Andy Grove.

"I’ll need to think about it, Larry."

"OK, I’ll call you again."

After hanging up, Larry felt regret for the baseball tickets once more.

Just as he thought, most CEOs here in Silicon Valley leaned towards the Republican Party; they distrusted the tax-increasing Democratic Party.

But Larry did not give up; he started to call Dave Packard of HP.

A few minutes later, he received some welcome news. Packard was willing to attend next week’s fundraising dinner.

Honestly, this was somewhat unexpected for Larry, as he knew Packard’s political stance also leaned to the right.

The reason wasn’t the charm of the Governor of Arkansas at play, but rather Packard was aligning with his former boss.

In ’69, David Packard resigned from HP’s CEO position to go to Washington as Deputy Secretary of Defense under the Nixon administration.

This made Packard realize that it was possible to be both a leader in the tech world and a politician.

So he had run for Sunnyvale City councilman years ago and, although unsuccessful, Packard remained passionate about politics.

He was eager to share everything he knew with party leaders; he’d written snowstorms of suggestions, sent to every Democratic candidate from Carter to Dukakis.

But Packard had never received a reply. This time he wanted to see for himself if the Governor of Arkansas would be willing to listen to his advice.

Well, Larry shrugged his shoulders; at least he had found a high-profile Silicon Valley representative.

Larry continued to thumb through his address book: Ellison from Oracle, John Sculley from Apple, Hennessy from MITS...

After a bunch of calls with little to show for it, he turned his attention to the newspaper on his desk.

[Byte Company’s IPO is imminent; will Dean Price become the next Bill Gates?]

Larry’s eyes lit up. Look, here comes the new star of Silicon Valley.

The young Governor of Arkansas and the even younger Silicon Valley star had plenty to discuss. One advocated for the substantial development of the tech industry while the other stood on the cutting edge of the tech wave—there couldn’t be a more suitable match.

However, Larry’s personal relationship with Dean was average at best; they hadn’t even had coffee together.

But after so many years in California, Larry had countless connections.

He knew David Morgentaler, who had served as the chair of the Venture Capital Association and with whom he had pleasant conversations.

Instead of calling Dean directly, Larry thought it was better to sound out David Morgentaler first.

"David, there’s a chance to meet the future leader of the Democratic Party, maybe even the occupant of the White House. Are you interested?"

"No, more precisely, is our ’Mr. Hundred Million’ interested in this gathering?"

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.