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How to Hack A Party Line: by Sara Miles I used to live just outside Washington, D.C., in one of the endless suburbs circling the nation’s capital. I never thought I would find a place as egocentric, money-soaked or out-and-out bizarre. Then I moved to Northern California. What I found in the Bay area and on trips to Silicon Valley rivals (if not tops) D.C.: a weird amalgamation of hippy-trippy attitudes offset by an overwhelming preoccupation with the numbers of hours worked each week and an intense desire to hit the high-tech lottery. In Washington, your proximity to the Hill means everything. People you meet fire off questions designed to figure out if you have government connections. In the Bay, just switch the focus of power to Silicon Valley and you get the picture. New acquaintances ask whom you know; their real interest, of course, is how much you’re worth. The beauty of Sara Miles’ How to Hack a Party Line: The Democrats and Silicon Valley is that she’s taken what could have been a rather lifeless subject — the coming together of Silicon Valley and the Democratic political machine — and boiled it down to its essence: the never-ending quest for wealth and influence.
How to Hack a Party Line reads like a novel due to Miles’ deft behind-the-scenes reporting on geeky gazillionaires and their foray into politics prior to the 2000 elections. Filled with larger-than-life characters, including the president, vice president, top White House insiders, and numerous young dot com millionaires, it features nearly all the classic story elements: suspense, greed, ego, comedy and intensity. About the only thing missing is a dose of sex. The book’s premise is simple: What happens when the competing gods of Mt. Silicon Valley convene with the gods of Mt. Washington? Neither side really understands the other, but both sides have something the other wants. Silicon Valley desires influence, while the Democrats seek to tap into the wealth of the New Economy. Unfortunately, there’s no Zeus in the picture to provide guidance. Even President Clinton, whose political power had been sapped by the Lewinsky scandal, can’t do much more than shake hands and radiate charm at Silicon Valley fundraising dinners. As Miles portrays it, the reader is left with the impression that the Silicon Valley leaders think they are every bit as powerful, or at least as important, as Clinton or the wooden Al Gore. Gore is a central figure in the story and Miles is particularly critical of how his campaign staffers grasp for power at the detriment of building an effective organization. Repeatedly, the Gore campaign and Democratic National Committee staffers struggle with the power brokers of Silicon Valley - some of whom seem to believe that throwing money around makes up for their collective lack of political acumen. Democrats in Washington were exasperated with the political naivet” of Silicon Valley, and viewed its members as a bunch of brash upstarts. Instead of working together for the common good, each side remained suspicious of the other and ultimately wasted time bickering. The problems within Gore’s camp are unusually glaring when reading the book post-2000 Election, knowing Gore lost by such a slim margin Throughout most of the book, Miles shadows Wade Randlett, a New Democrat fundraiser and operative who passionately believes that high tech should have a voice in D.C. commensurate with its place in the global economy. Randlett comes off as a yuppie political wannabe with a taste for expensive suits, fast cars and the trophy girlfriend. He’s the kind of guy you can’t help tripping over in D.C. where “consultants’ are a dime a dozen. Among the faceless, mirrored three-story office buildings of Silicon Valley, however, Randlett becomes a star. He tutors the politically oblivious techies and finds a powerful benefactor in John Doerr, the legendary venture capitalist. Randlett is handsome, brash, arrogant to the point of queasiness, and a thoroughly indoctrinated member of the centrist Clintonian New Democrats. His downfall seems inevitable from the earliest pages of the book, especially as he tramples over Democratic insiders back in Washington. Randlett isn’t self-conscious about his goals, telling Miles, “High-tech people didn’t understand the political system at all; they considered it inefficient and corrupt. Political people didn’t get the technology or the business model. They thought Silicon Valley was cheap, apathetic, and impossible to organize. And I thought, Whoever cracks Silicon Valley is going to be the cham-peen of the world.” His impending doom is also foreshadowed by the sheer political cluelessness of the New Economy leaders. For example, Randlett travels to Seattle trying to spread his high-tech lobbying power beyond Silicon Valley and to pay homage to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. What does the Internet posterboy propose for Gore to win the Web? Believe it or not, Bezos’grand plan was ‘the lawn sign in cyberspace.” The idea was to have a picture of a crooked, handmade sign that people could put on their personal Web pages that said “Geeks for Gore.” Bezos, who intimately understands the value of publicity, explained, “All you need is a thousand of them up, then the traditional media will pick it up, do your marketing for you.” Even though the idea is pretty simple and not far from downright silly, Randlett cooed, “Man, Jeff, you’re a freakin” genius.” Reading How to Hack A Party Line after the Nasdaq fallout and the utter debacle of the 2000 presidential election is a strange exercise. The aspirations the characters in the book discuss, for the most part, have been distorted. Gore lost. The glimmering New Economy everyone trumpets so proudly now seems like a bunch of hocus-pocus. Venture capitalist money has dried up and “old” ideas, such as building revenues, have made a dramatic comeback. Some of the young, rich entrepreneurs in the book lost most of their net worth and nearly all their prestige in the market downturn. Dabbling in politics and building a technology coalition definitely takes a backseat when survival becomes the primary goal. Throughout the tale, Miles remains skeptical of both camps and provides a healthy reality check when the verbosity of the characters gets too deep. She has a keen eye for picking up the nuances of life in both areas and the kinds of people who inhabit the worlds of high tech and high government. In a San Francisco club, she describes the crowd as “wealthy and hip, with clusters of new media designers and producers standing around and chatting self-consciously, trying to act like grownups.” In a Senate office room, Miles portrays a contentious meeting over Y2K issues between John Doerr and a throng of senators, including Ted Kennedy, Jay Rockefeller, Dianne Feinstein and Joe Lieberman. The battle between Doerr and Rockefeller (old money vs. new money) is worth the price of the book alone. Miles is a gifted storyteller, and she backs her writing up with the legwork to make How to Hack A Party Line more than simply a page-turner. The book should be required reading for all aspiring Silicon Valley business leaders who hope to exert influence in Washington and their counterparts in the capital who plan to tap into high-tech money. I wonder if things were this interesting in the Republican camp? Bob Batchelor is a business writer and historian based in San Rafael, Calif. He is currently at work on The 1900s, a book about the intersection of popular culture and history in the first decade of the 20th century for the series American Popular Culture Through History (Greenwood). Related Sites |
