Why Bill Gates loves Sen. Slade Gorton

In a close race in Washington state, Slade Gorton, the aging GOP incumbent known as the senator for Microsoft, is facing off against Maria Cantwell, the glamorous young high-tech challenger from RealNetworks. At a Gorton fundraiser Wednesday night, Bill Gates made clear which candidate he's backing, and in the past week of campaigning, Gorton has made it plainer than ever why he has Gates' support: He will use his influence to persuade Texas Gov. George W. Bush, assuming the Republican is elected president, to appoint an attorney general opposed to the breakup of Microsoft.

Cantwell is a former marketing executive with Seattle-based RealNetworks, a bitter rival of Microsoft's in streaming-media technology. Running to represent Microsoft's home state, however, she has been at pains to show support for the home team. In an official policy statement on the Microsoft case, Cantwell urges "restraint" by the government and says, "There is no urgency to justify radical measures, and there are workable solutions short of breakup."

But that position, even as it balks at a breakup remedy, falls well short of denouncing the Department of Justice suit. By comparison, Gorton has been much tougher in his criticism of what he calls "the Clinton-Gore attack on Microsoft." And Gorton, a senior senator, has far more clout than Cantwell could hope to have in D.C.

Microsoft has donated more than $100,000 to Gorton's campaign and less than $10,000 to Cantwell's. Speaking Wednesday night at a $1,000-per-head fundraiser in Kirkland, Wash., Bill Gates threw his warm personal support to Gorton.

"You know the high-tech industry has been very lucky to have Sen. Gorton back in D.C. representing the interests, not just of Microsoft, but of the entire high-tech industry," Gates told a crowd of about 80 Gorton supporters.

"I've had a lot of time with the senator," Gates said, going on to praise Gorton for his support and for "asking us what we were doing, how we were communicating, who we were working with, and giving us advice that's made a lot of difference.

"We're all very lucky to have him as a senator - Microsoft, the whole industry - and we're certainly grateful for everything he's done. And I think I can speak for everybody here in saying we wish you success on Nov. 7," Gates concluded.

Campaigning last week in Everett, Wash., Gorton made clear why he has earned such a ringing endorsement from the world's richest man. "We're going to have a new attorney general next year," Gorton told students at Mariner High School. "I think if Gov. Bush is elected, we will have an attorney general that will abandon the idea that Microsoft will be broken up." Gorton also told the students that he had spoken with Gov. Bush "on a number of occasions" about appointing an attorney general who would do just that, and he expressed confidence that Bush would follow through.

Then, after a televised debate last Monday, Gorton told assembled journalists that "the next president, as far as I'm concerned, is going to dismiss that lawsuit."

Gorton also suggested that he has managed to swing the Republican Party away from the anti-Microsoft path blazed by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), chair of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee. Hatch held the early hearings into Microsoft's alleged antitrust abuses that helped propel the Department of Justice suit.

"I believe I've been successful in isolating Sen. Hatch within the Republican Party," Gorton said following the TV debate.

Bush, who campaigned alongside Gorton again this week in Washington, has not taken an official position on the Microsoft suit. Even if he were elected president, he could not simply "dismiss" a case that is already making its way through the judicial system. He could, however, direct the Justice Department to be less aggressive in fighting Microsoft's appeals.

The new president also could conceivably order the Justice Department to drop its side of the case altogether, though that would be politically difficult. In a more likely scenario, if Microsoft were to win in the appeals court, a new attorney general could properly decide not to appeal that decision to the Supreme Court.

Without a doubt, that's why Sen. Slade Gorton has won the support of Bill Gates.

Nina Shapiro writes for the Seattle Weekly.

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