At last night’s grand opening party for Google Inc.’s new Washington D.C. offices, South Carolina Representative Mark Sanford stood near trays of peach cobbler milkshakes and maple-bacon donuts. Chefs bustled at an open kitchen in the center of the vast entertaining space. A DJ cued a song whose title captured the tenor of Google’s latest outreach to lawmakers: “Happy.”
Young Googlers, as the company calls its workers, milled around meatball stations and a bar with “molecular” gin and tonics, amid hundreds of politicians, lobbyists and other guests. California Representative Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was there. So was Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley.
