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How Tech-Savvy Will the Next President Be?
CorinneI writes "We've got our candidates. We know their positions on the major issues of the day — healthcare, the Iraq war, the economy, yada, yada, yada. But Senators McCain and Obama will also have to be concerned with tech issues. Where do they stand on Net neutrality, patent protection, piracy, broadband, privacy, and H1B visas? Do their campaign positions match up with their voting records and public statements? Here's how they stack up on the big five tech issues of the day."
Net neutrality:
McCain - let the markets handle it
Obama - legislate it
Broadband Availability:
McCain - increased access via competition
Obama - re-define 'broadband', move toward universal service, increase availability at schools & libraries
H1B visas:
McCain - increase the number of them
Obama - full immigration overhaul, produce more American-born tech workers, make workers less dependent on their employers
Intellectual Property Protection:
McCain - gov't handles blatant abuses, works against protectionism
Obama - increase cooperation on international standards
Privacy:
McCain - immunity for companies that cooperated with warrentless wiretapping
Obama - expand the FTC to cooperate with international agencies to track cyber-criminals
Not quite. You forgot to add the vast sums of money to the equation.
Obama: $4,022,006 (TV/Movies/Music) + $3,060,630 (Computers/Internet) = $7,082,636
McCain: $636,046 (TV/Movies/Music) + $629,315 (Computers/Internet) = $1,265,361
Gee, I wonder who's going to be listening harder to what the RIAA, telcos and other technology sector players have to say...
Maybe we should look at campaign contributions instead. Hmm, notice any telecom companies accused of illegal domestic spying on his "top 5 contributors"?
I suspect the original poster is trying to imply an illegal link between the candidate and industry. I can't comment if one exists. But what I recommend is you go to Center for Responsive Politics which will tell you where the source of campaign contributions of all presidential candidates.
The Web site aggregates company donations by industrial sector. Thus to see which candidate gets the most money from "Telephone Utilities" you can try clicking on this link: Telephone Utility Totals to Candidates As you can see Sen. McCain has received $345,945 from said utilities while Sen. Obama has received $203,546.
Feel free to draw your own conclusions.
N.B. I should note that the last election fund-raising report was due on 20-May-2008 and that was for donations received in April, so the information on this Web site is usually two months old.