"Google will sway 2008 Elections" -- Google's Clueless arrogance

Google has no sense of when to keep their mouth shut, because their corporate arrogance and cluelessness appears boundless. 

I could only shake my head at the headline in Comm Daily today prompted by a Google official speaking at a Washington conference.

• "Internet, Google will Sway 2008 Elections: Company Executive" (p.4 Communications Daily 3-16-07)
• "Google sees itself as a force in a political race that could hinge on making the best of Web and other tools, Google Vp-Global Communications Elliot Schrage said Thurs. at the Politics Online conference in Washington."
• "Candidates are starting to see the Web's power, Schrage said: "Already candidates and campaigns are spending tens of thousands on adwords campaigns alone." The company invited declared Presidential candidates to its offices to "talk technology and policy" and will post videos of the talks if candidates permit it, he said. Google is trying to "make services easier to use" through a "special sales and political team dedicated to helping political camps, he said."" 

Generally company's are more responsible and circumspect about bragging about their own company's ability to influence or "sway" and election. The U.S. Government takes Federal Election laws seriously and is attuned to ensuring the electoral process is not manipulated in any way.

Why this is relevant is that with 50% of the search market in the U.S. Google has more potential "sway" over elections than any other company in America.

If Google could "sway 2008 elections" which way would they sway them?

• Is it relevant that the Center for Responsive Politics reports that in the last election cycle that 98% of Google employee campaign contributions went to Democrats?
• Is it relevant that former Vice President Gore is a Senior Advisor to Google?
• Is it relevant that Google has been complicit in allowing political groups like MyDD to manipulate search results against Republicans with "Google bombs"? 
• Is it relevant that no one would ever know if Google's secret search algorithms secretly favored one party or candidate or another when serving 50% of the public as the gateway they use to access all digital info on the net?
• Is it relevant that Google may have the weakest respect for privacy of any major American corporation and also has access to the most intimate and comprehensive database on Americans private preferences of any American company? 

Google would probably be wise to not brag about their ability to "sway" elections.

• I can imagine there are a whole host of Government officials and politicians that would want to get to the bottom of any Google attempt to "sway" a Federal election.