Credit: National Review

The Wall Street Journal and Reuters are reporting that Google has hired Jill Hazelbaker to replace Matt Furman as head of corporate communications. Most recently Hazelbaker worked for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg during his successful re-election campaign.

Google has historically hired people with Washington experience, but bringing on Hazelbaker may anticipate a somewhat more adversarial road ahead for the search engine as it confronts anti-trust scrutiny at every turn.

While Google hires people without regard to their political views or orientation its top executives are widely regarded as supportive of Democrats and Democrat-favored positions. Yet the Obama Justice Department is proving a “tougher sale” than would likely have been the case under a McCain administration.

Related Topics: Google: Employees | Google: Marketing

About The Author: Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog Screenwerk, about SoLoMo issues and connecting the dots between online and offline. He also posts at Internet2Go, which is focused on the mobile Internet. Follow him @gsterling. See more articles by Greg Sterling