WASHINGTON-The Clinton-Gore ticket is picking up endorsements from the high-tech community, despite policy differences earlier this year that threatened that support.
A total of 75 high-tech firms from the Silicon Valley and elsewhere in California, including Qualcomm Corp. and General Magic, this month announced backing for President Clinton’s re-election bid against GOP rival Bob Dole.
The companies’ backing is significant in view of California’s 54 electoral votes. Clinton enjoys a comfortable lead over Dole in the state.
“When it comes to creating jobs, deficit reduction and investments in technology and education, Clinton and Gore have shown remarkable leadership,” said John Doerr of Kleiner, Perkins & Byers, a top high-tech venture fund.
The Communications Workers of America, which endorsed Clinton-Gore at its 58th annual convention in June, continues to publicize support for the administration.
Vice President Gore, a technocrat who has led the crusade for the Information Superhighway and a Global Information Infrastructure, is largely responsible for winning over the technology sector. Gore wants to connect every school, library and hospital to the Information Superhighway-a network of wireless and wireline networks-by 2000.
Republicans have been hurt by their desire to cut funding for advanced technology programs and research and development, even though they led the way on telecommunications and securities litigation reform.
Indeed, high-tech’s relationship with the White House was on shaky ground in 1996, and nearly soured.
Clinton vetoed a GOP securities litigation reform bill late last year, only to be overridden by the GOP-led Congress. The measure makes it harder for investors to sue high-tech firms. But, in an apparent policy reversal, the president now opposes a ballot proposition in California to lessen the difficulty of suing high-tech companies on fraud grounds.
The computer and telecommunications industries are unhappy with the administration’s encryption policy because of export restrictions and other provisions that would require two entities to hold keys to unlock scrambled data files.
Yet the high-tech sector appears to be leery of Dole’s supply side economic plan and more comfortable with Clinton’s balanced budget plan.
