Silicon Valley stars are a no-show in Charlotte

President Barack Obama has raised millions from Silicon Valley, totes his iPad everywhere and touts tech on the campaign trail, but at his party's convention, many of his big-name tech backers are missing in action.

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt was in New York at a press conference. Top bundler Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce.com, is in the Bay Area prepping for a software event. And you won’t see Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg or Yelp's Jeremy Stoppelman wandering around the Time Warner Arena, either. Silicon Valley at times drives the Democratic agenda — the convention platform touches on everything from building out broadband to beefing up cybersecurity — but it has a backseat here in Charlotte. The only Valley rep taking the forum stage during the three-day event is Steve Westly, an investor in clean energy, despite the numerous sponsorships by Web companies of parties, product demos and panel discussions. Yet it's not something that bothers many in the tech set. "What tech execs are busy doing is running companies,” said Michael Petricone of the Consumer Electronics Association. "This is a political convention, and what you do at political conventions is go after specific demographics."