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As everyone tweets and writes today about how Twitter is just a fad, a move by a top Facebook executive shows — at least in his mind — that Facebook is far beyond fad status at this point. According to this AP report, Chris Kelly, the chief privacy officer for Facebook, has opened an exploratory committee to consider running for attorney general in California. He cites his Facebook work as one of his qualifications:
He said that as Facebook’s chief privacy officer for the last four years, he had worked with attorneys general across the country to make the Internet “safer for consumers of all ages, particularly young people.”
It’s true that Facebook and Kelly, specifically, have worked with state attorneys general (including in Ohio) over the past couple of years to make the site safer, but I’m not sure how far that’s going to get him if running to become attorney general of California. (I mean, the current officeholder is a former governor!)
Regardless, it doesn’t look like things will be easy going for Kelly, should he decide to run:
Kelly announced the formation of his exploratory committee on the same day that an announced candidate for attorney general, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, said she had been endorsed by three Silicon Valley officials — Assemblywoman Elaine Alquist, D-San Jose, and San Jose City Council members Madison Nguyen and Ash Kalra.
Harris is getting all the early support for the race that I’ve seen, so I would think this is a very uphill race for Kelly. One other potential opponent in the primary, Bobby Shriver, already has opted out of the race, per the LA Times.
[UPDATE: Here is Kelly's Web site. Here is Harris's bio on the San Fran City Attorney's Web site.]
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Chris Geidner is the award-winning senior political & legal reporter at BuzzFeed and has written for Metro Weekly, The Atlantic Online, The American Prospect, Advocate.com, Salon and other publications, as well as at his blog, Law Dork. He has appeared regularly on television commenting on current affairs, including MSNBC, PBS, HLN & Current. Prior to moving to D.C. in 2009, he served as an attorney on the senior staff at the Ohio Attorney General's Office and had earlier worked for a leading Columbus law firm. An extended biography can be found