Google's Schmidt aiming for Obama CTO role?

While Gen. Colin Powell's endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Barak Obama received the lion's share of the press this weekend, Obama racked up another endorsement almost as telling, that of Google CEO Eric Schmidt. The Wall St. Journal reports that Schmidt is personally endorsing Obama (Google itself remains "neutral") and will be hitting the campaign trail with the candidate this week in Florida. The endorsement isn't a huge surprise, as Schmidt has been advising Obama on technology policy, and specifically clean energy, for a while now. But the move has observers wondering: is Schmidt gunning for the CTO post in the Obama administration?

In some respects, the Schmidt-Obama partnership makes policy sense. Google and Obama seem to be on the same page when it comes to the way government deals with technology. For example, Google has long been a champion of net neutrality, while four years ago, Obama co-sponsored legislation supporting it. And with Google under increasing regulatory scrutiny due to its impending deal with Yahoo, Schmidt is wise to foster a good relationship with the perhaps-future tenant of the White House.

But Obama has also said he plans to create a new Chief Technology Officer post in his cabinet, and to date, Schmidt is the most prominent technology executive advising the campaign. Could Schmidt be lining himself up to be the U.S.'s first CTO? While Schmidt himself denies he has any interest in the post--"I'm actually very busy running Google," he says--such denials don't always stick. And what better way to ensure Google's unique take on technology gets firmly planted right at the top?

• clean energy
• CTO
• endorsement
• Google
• obama
• policy
• Schmidt
• technology