MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. — Like seven candidates before him, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd made the pilgrimage to Google on Monday in what has become a rite of passage in this presidential campaign.
But the longtime Connecticut senator and long-shot presidential candidate brought something a little different: a challenge to the powerful Internet company to protect free expression around the globe.
Dodd, who has struggled to stand out in the crowded Democratic field, called on Google to defy the Chinese government and stop censoring information in Web searches there.
"What better way to affirm Google's commitment to democracy and the free flow of information as a human right than to send this message to the country with the largest population in the world?" Dodd asked a crowd of about 100 Google employees. "When Google acts, others follow."
Dodd is one of several presidential candidates visiting California in a flurry of public appearances and fundraising events before the final weeks of campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire. Voting in those states will start shortly after New Year's; California's presidential primary will be held Feb. 5.
In Los Angeles, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama offered 5,000 supporters at a Universal City fundraiser a stiff repudiation of the Bush administration.
"We were promised a compassionate conservative and we got Katrina and wiretaps," he said. "We were promised a uniter but got a president who couldn't even lead the half of the country that voted for him."
Obama also appeared to chide his chief competitor for the Democratic nomination, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. "I don't want to spend the next four years having the same arguments with the same lack of results," he said.
Earlier, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, used a Los Angeles conference on green technology to tout his plan for energy independence.
Richardson vowed that as president he would lower carbon emissions by 80% by 2040, significantly earlier than other candidates have pledged. He also jocularly saluted former Vice President Al Gore, whose lifelong advocacy on the subject of global warming resulted in his receipt Monday of the Nobel Peace Prize.
"Al Gore's been right for years," Richardson told several hundred gathered at the GreenXchange conference in Century City. "I just hope he doesn't get into the race. I think it's a little too late."
