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IT Workers Split For McCain, Obama
antipeon alerts us to a presidential preference survey, done in late February and early March, indicating that Obama and McCain lead among IT workers with 29% each. Clinton follows with 13%, just ahead of Huckabee (11%) and Ron Paul (9%). The Computing Technology Industry Association commissioned the poll, and the article notes that this trade group claims the population of IT workers is four times as large as the Bureau of Labor Statistics thinks it is — the better to make a voting block whose views must be attended to.
I had the pleasure of growing up in one of the few really integrated towns/school districts. I had many black friends but none that would invite me over because they were afraid of what their father would say.
Rev. Wright is sadly enough the norm...
It would be nice if we could brush the situation under the rug, but we can't and we shouldn't. I don't believe that Obama shares the Rev. thinking, and I can understand why he doesn't disown him.
If you really want to find out the current status of race relations in the US watch some of the Chris Rock videos on youtube.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Looking at the Clintons' record on H1B visas and Hillary's deep connections with companies like India's Tata (remember this http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-22654114_ITM) its no surprise that IT professionals are rejecting her. She's all for sending our jobs overseas.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
McCain is against net neutrality (and I sense he doesn't understand the issue either) while Obama is for protecting net neutrality and - judging by the way his campaign is ran - is a lot more tech savvy than the other remaining candidates.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Think about it. If he's been there for 20 years and never heard him say that kind of thing, isn't it logical to assume that he didn't say that kind of thing a whole lot?
Look at when he said it. It was right after 9/11. Everybody was saying crazy shit for a few weeks after 9/11. People were seriously proposing that airline passengers be required to fly in hospital gowns. Pat Robertson was blaming the whole thing on the gays. I was ready to join the marines.
What could possibly make an IT person vote for McCain? He doesn't seem likely to even have a cellphone, let alone relate at all to anything IT people have to deal with. He's confessed he doesn't understand the economy. His Republican anti-immigration policies don't protect any IT jobs. What makes him seem like he could possibly represent their interests as president?
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make install -not war
I'm a bit surprised IT workers are split. While I voted for McCain for Senate while living in Phoenix, I feel Obama is much stronger on tech issues. Here's what really sold me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4yVlPqeZwo
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Hell yes Bush did. He looked GREAT on paper:
My point is that resume bullets look good when you don't have to give the details; i.e. rejected by law school and daddy got him into the Guard to duck combat service, CEO of several failed companies, ripped off tax payers of Houston on the stadium deal then turned around and sold team to reap profit from stadium tax, only got into Yale because of legacy, etc.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
when most polls show Ron Paul at under 5%, why do 10% of IT people support him?
Because many IT folks were fed libertarian talking points throughout their adolescence in the form of American science fiction. American sci-fi is disproportionately libertarian, with even an annual award (the Prometheus Award) given out by the Libertarian Futurist Society. Many famous names in sci-fi including Poul Anderson, Robert Heinlein, Neil Stephenson, David Brin, Larry Niven, and Vernor Vinge are/were associated with establishment libertarianism, and even Heinlein (who was supposedly co-opted by the libertarians ("TAANSTFL")) did little to publicly correct the impression that he favored anarcho-libertarian ideology.
Now twenty years later many IT folks have libertarianism sunk in very deep indeed.
The entire text of the sermon can be read here. The worst bits, the ones that get all the play, are essentially Wright quoting someone else, inside a parenthetical aside from his main disquisition, using an essentially "devil's advocate" voice. Jerry Falwell's comments, even in context, on the same topic were far worse.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
In some sense this is emblematic of the greater problem facing American politics these days: the inability of opposing sides to acknowledge the proper scope of disagreement. Instead, we get the sort of thing in the OP: accusations that some people want to "shred the Constitution" or "sell the USA to the lowest bidder". If Obama supports getting out of Iraq, it must be because he hates America and wants us to fail. If McCain wants to stay in Iraq, it must be because he's a crazy warmonger.
After all, it would be so much harder to start by acknowledging that all the candidates wants to preserve the Constitution but differ as to what it means. Similarly, how could we ever acknowledge that the candidates all want what's best for the US (gasp!) but differ on how to achieve it?
~Oren
* Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for Ron Paul and the principles of limited Federal government (but I can't unequivocally endorse some of his other policies).
Absolutely agreed. I've seen some of the Reverend's comments, and they appear to come from a man genuinely disappointed in his country, and not flame-baiting or hate-mongering. Are we so blind by national pride that we cannot see the faults in our own government and our own people? Don't damn the reverend for daring to say what we're all thinking, damn the people who refuse to criticize themselves.
I get the feeling Obama waited as long as he did to distance himself from the Reverend because he knew the whole thing was blown out of proportion. But unfortunately he did cave to media pressure in the end. The power of the media to latch onto a message and be blind to all other interpretations.
Besides, since when did criticizing America become unpatriotic? I would think it's the most patriotic thing to do.
Care to explain what that difference is? From my perspective, it looks worse for McCain, since he clearly accepted the endorsement in full knowledge of the objectionable things Hagee said. Obama, on the other hand, was attending church long before Wright made his objectionable speeches, and it's a bit much to hold him responsible for not correctly predicting what somebody would say 15 years in advance.
Not that any of this has anything to do with what's best for the nation, of course. Perhaps we would be better off sticking to the issues and leaving the "gotcha" guilt-by-association memes by the wayside...
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I don't live in the US, but I am currently here on a business trip.
I spent yesterday in NYC, as a sort of small holiday before travelling on to Connecticut where I've got my meeting.
In NYC, I took one of those tour bus things to take a look around as I didn't have much time or knowledge of the city to really spend it looking around on my own. One thing that sticks in my mind is a statement that the tour guide guy said. "The average income of a person in Manhattan is $1500 a month". He went on to clarify that that is of course taking in to account the millionaires as well as the dirt poor, however I think it may still be a fairly representative figure, but was clearly attempting to say that $1500 a month is a lot of money (basically attempting to impress the tourists about how wealthy Manhattan is). That surprised me a lot - from what I saw, it's NOT a cheap city to live in at all, and $1500 USD a month is NOTHING compared to the average wage back home, which is also a much cheaper place to live. If the US dollar continues to fall, I can really imagine places like Manhattan very quickly becoming slums.
Note that this is just "first impression" and I could well be wrong, but as an outsider's perspective, it's pretty scary. Whoever you do, as a nation, vote in next, I really hope it's someone that is capable of doing something about your economy.
As a side note: I'd also hope it's someone that can do something about your security policies and free speech... I almost got arrested for "public disturbance" at the Statue of Liberty for arguing with a couple of Americans about the meaning of "Liberty" and how excessive security erodes it. I was ALMOST tempted to continue the argument and let them arrest me just for the irony of being arrested for a discussion about the meaning of the word Liberty when standing only metres away from that icon that is supposed to represent it. (I decided instead to apologise to the "nice officer", shut-up and leave, as it would REALLY not make a good impression on my company to miss the business meeting due to being arrested in New York City)
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
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