Dem FCC Chair Guessing Game

The good and connected Brooks Boliek at the Hollywood Reporter makes some educated guesses on who the next FCC Chair would be if either Senators Clinton or Obama are elected president.

For Clinton, Boliek hears that...

Susan Ness is the name bandied about among the tele-cognesceti. Ness, a former commissioner, has strong ties to the Clintons. She was a fundraiser and former campaign worker for President Clinton and has continued in that role actively campaigning for the senator. She has been named a "Hill Raiser" for raising more than $100,000 for Clinton and has been active in her campaign.

As for Obama...

...his campaign and Senate staffs are dotted with people who have close ties to the FCC. Connecting those dots, however, is Julius Genachowski, a former aide to Hundt and Kennard and a close friend of Obama's since they attended Harvard Law School....

Aside from commission experience, Genachowski was an executive at Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp. and a managing director at digital media specialist Rock Creek Ventures and is a special adviser to the private-equity group General Atlantic. (Ed note: Genachowski was Obama's representative at this year's Congressional Internet Caucus conference.)

"He got a lot of people interested in him early on," said Blair Levin, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus who was a top adviser to Hundt. "There are a lot of people there that would be terrific choices, just as there are in the other campaigns."

Levin has also been mentioned as a possibility, but he dodged the question when asked if he wanted the job.

Boliek also mentions: Obama policy director Karen Kornbluh, who also worked at the commission under Hundt and Kennard; Don Gipps, an FCC veteran who was former Vice President Al Gore's domestic policy adviser and is now a top executive at Level 3; and, Larry Stcikling, a former chief of the FCC Common Carrier Bureau and an Obama campaign worker.