The Google Primary

"The Google primary" (Newsweek, Nov 15): "When Frances Haugen left Iowa for California, she figured she would never get to see a presidential candidate up close again. But since taking a job at Google a year ago,Haugen has been courted in person by John McCain, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson. On Wednesday, it was Barack Obama's turn to woo the 23-year-old product manager—and 1,500 of her fellow "Googlers " in a standing-room-only crowd at the company's Mountain View campus. There he delivered a speech on Internet policy and subjected himself to questions from CEO Eric Schmidt, streamed live on the Web to the search giant's nearly 16,000 employees worldwide. "I like to think of the [campaign] as a job interview," said Schmidt, as Obama pretended to look nervous in a sleek red leather lounger onstage under the company's logo. 'It's hard to get the job as president, and it's hard to get a job at Google.'"