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A Look At Joe Biden's Tech Voting Record
Aviran brings us an analysis of Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden's voting record on technology issues. CNet breaks down the issues by category and provides details on the tech-related legislation he's introduced in the past several years. Biden received a score of 37.5% on CNet's 2006 technology voter guide. We've discussed the technology stances of McCain and Obama in the past.
How can a candidate running on a base of "change" justify picking a VP who has been in DC for 30+ years?
The only thing "changing" in January is the position DC is fucking me in...
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
Interesting. Is there a J. Edgar Hover wannabe there? Or is it just the current climate with this administration.
the trouble with this is, even though Obama would be the President if elected, Biden would be President of the Senate. So if there's a tie breaker for or against something that would further deteriorate our Civil Liberties, I can only assume Biden would vote in favor of less freedom. And if that should some to pass, maybe Obama would veto it. Then again, maybe not. This country is on a path of safety overrides freedom every time. I have lost hope.
Everyone has bias. Everyone.
The problem with voting records is not always apparent when you look at them and try to decide if someone is good for an industry or not. Industries are too complicated for any law to be truly pro or against the industry. Tech is especially so.
For me, the best voting record for a candidate is proven by those who halted BAD legislation by not just voting against more government intrusions into the market, but also worked to hold up bad bills from leaving committees. My favorite legislators are those who just shut down most bills before they're even really bills. The legislative committees is where the best work is done, or the worst work is done.
This is why I fully believe our campaign finance laws are to blame when it comes to voting records. Since the individual is greatly limited in who they can support, and how, it is always the large lobbying groups that end up writing the laws. McCain and Feingold knew this, and they knew that limiting the voice of the individual would end up limiting the power of the individual.
To wrap up, trying to look at voting records is bad because most of the work is done before the vote is even considered. We have no power, as individuals, to try to work in that process. The lobbying groups, which are always about MORE legislation to destroy competition and never LESS, are cozied up very nicely: to Obama, to Biden, to McCain, to whoever it is who is elected, might be elected, or was elected. And on that, all of them have terrible voting records which do nothing but restrict competition in every market they touch.
Biden wasn't nominated the VP because of his tech voting record. Just look at what the Democrats are talking about- Iraq, the economy, healthcare, the housing crisis, etc. Net Neutrality is barely on the radar, and you can be assured that NN isn't going to get a vote in the next two years (unless someone piles it in an omnibus) even with a Democratic majority.
Biden is a tactical choice to try to win the election; not a choice of "who would actually make the best VP once we win". All you have to do to realize that is watch Biden's acceptance speech, where he smacked the hell out of McCain. Regardless of which side of the aisle you're on politically; that "seven kitchen tables" line was gold. That's what Biden is there for- to attack McCain (and McCain's VP choice) while Obama is above the fray.
VPs are chosen as an attempt to win elections, not as an attempt to pick the best man for the job.
Care about privacy? Read this!
Against all the parties of capitalism, for a workers party that fights for a workers government!
We have lost more freedoms than ever under Republican administrations and this user seems to question the ability of Obama/Biden before they even get a chance - as if its the democrats fault we're in this shit hole we're in today (or as if the parent accepts this shit hole as conservative progress)
Tell me ONE law, ONE goal, ONE ambition of the Obama/Biden ticket that will make "safety override freedom every time".
Obama/Biden isn't Clinton politics.
* Going Green is energy policy
* Creating Green jobs is Economic Policy
* Having a right hand mand to fill in the "DC politics" greed that voters will (for what reason i don't know) expect is a BOON.
* Healthcare is a great policy - a social insurance program that could have been funded for every human being if we hadn't been hell bent on WAR
I could go on and on what Obama/Biden can do for us but to people like you, its only what you assume they will do against you without regards for your fellow neighbors, countrymen and US citizens.
Biden is apparently a pretty boy with little ability to think. Maybe he voted against the FISA bill because he knew it would pass?
It's not flamebait. There's a good 5% of the voting public feel exactly that way about these two. And they have very good reason. While their position on "high" tech is interesting and all, when you starting asking the real questions, it boils down to their position on our rights to use that tech as we see fit. Because none of them are "against" technology. We have to watch how it will used against us. So the questions become something like, Who's going to to reign in the FBI and their wiretapping? Who's going to stop the TSA from damaging our airliners, possibly causing a real disaster? When are we ever going to see real adherence to the Bill of Rights? Not that we ever had, but it's about time we make a real effort. If we want to see truly rapid development of high tech, we have to ask when are they going to put an end to near infinite copyright, and the idea of software patents.
Well, from both of these guys we are getting negative responses to all these questions and more. We are going to get more of the same thing that we have been getting since long before we were born.
So the AC is right
Fuck McCain
Fuck Obama
The only thing I could add is "!"
What?
If the only alternative is McCain and $haircut, then Obama and LITERALLY WHOEVER gets my vote.
This is the power and the glory of the two party system at work.
You should note that when you vote for the (slightly) lesser of two evils, you are voting for the two-party system by doing so.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
I would argue that it's not a slight difference, but past that: There's a time for idealism and a time for pragmatism. In 2000, I went idealism and voted Nader. I won't be making that mistake this time around.
...the system proved once again that it is an abysmal failure in promoting good leaders.
No, we have proven that we are abysmal failures at seeking out good leaders. It is we who are so easily distracted by their shiny trinkets. It is we who act so helpless when only we can make the needed changes.
Next time, vote your conscience.
I agree, but most are voting for the guy who brings it home. The system ain't broke. We are. We created this system, and we continue to feed it. Most are just just not uncomfortable enough to do anything about it. Lack of empathy and downright hate play a huge part.
What?
Here are a couple of basic facts omitted by the submitter: Obama got a 50.00% rating and McCain got a 31.25% rating.
Given that that information was available via two clicks on the same page that yielded Biden's rating, and given that the positions of the presidential candidates is a lot more important than the positions of the VP candidates, one has to wonder why the submitter didn't find those details worth mentioning.
Additionally, Obama made it very clear before he announced his choice of Biden that he wanted a VP candidate who would engage him in discussions about issues, disagree with him, and challenge his assumptions. Here's an example, in Obama's own words:
I apologize if this reduces the number of McCain troll points for somebody interested in getting some McCain campaign schwag.
I added the bold text for emphasis in the Obama quote above.
Another thing: a voting record is useful for evaluating a congresscritter, but not via a simple number. It requires more careful analysis. This is because a congressvarmints will sometimes vote for positions he opposes when the defeat of those positions is assured, but the positions are popular with the congressvarmint's constituents (or the opposite: vote against a position he supports when passage is assured without his vote). And while both members of the House of Representatives and Senators both do that, Senators have yet another trick because of the existence of the filibuster in the Senate. An example is Senator Joe Lieberman, who voted with the Republicans for cloture (i.e., to end the Democratic filibuster) on the nomination of Samuel Alito the Supreme Court. Since it was known that the Republicans had enough votes to rubber-stamp Bush's nomination of Alito, the vote that mattered was the cloture vote. After that, Lieberman cast his vote against confirming Alito, so he could tell the voters in Connecticut, an overwhelmingly Democratic state, that he had voted against Alito. If you were just to look at the confirmation vote, you might think Lieberman had been against confirming Alito, but on the vote that mattered, he voted with the Republicans.
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
There are legitimate reasons to vote against Internet gambling. There are legitimate reasons to vote against H1B visas. There are legitimate reasons to vote against free trade with China.
CNet is a news site. It shouldn't try to push a political agenda, even one that it thinks its audience shares.
Saying there were only 5% of the voters dissatisfied with the choices seemed way too low to me.
Note the "Neither" column. Occasionally it dips down to 4%. I believe you are making the assumption that these two are somehow different from each other. I can assure you, they are not. They represent the same interests of power. If one votes for a person they are "dissatisfied" with, then they really aren't dissatisfied. It is nothing more than passing the blame.
What?
I fully intend to vote, just like I have in every election I've been legally allowed to.
I'm just not voting for a presidential candidate from the big two parties.
They have to follow the Constitution before they can follow the Bill of Rights.
And so in 2006, you presumably voted Democrat, in order to end the War, stop illegal wiretapping, restore Habeus Corpus. Oh wait...
Nobody will just "vote their conscience" until there is a system that rewards that. Right now the system is setup to reward football politics, where people align themselves with the party instead of the individual. If you really like Dennis Kucinich, you still don't vote for him because everyone else is voting for Clinton or Obama so you feel like you need to pick the one of them who sucks less.
I think a really good solution is to use Instant Runoff Elections [1]. Then you can choose the candidate that you really like, and a second and third place candidate. Then if the person you really like doesn't get enough votes, your vote hasn't been thrown away.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
That is probably the biggest issue facing tech workers.
I know where McCain stands. McCain wants to rip the lid off any kind of a guest worker cap.
I get the idea that Obama wants to do the same, but Obama is not as brazen about it.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Submitters just can't win can they? If they left their bias exposed, they'd be blasted for exposing their bias. They try to make their summary neutral and stick to the facts, they get blasted for concealing their bias instead of exposing it!
I imagine given what the poster's bias is, it really doesn't matter what their party affiliation, both republican and democrat are equally poor on tech and copyright issues.
our votes don't really count under the farce that is the electoral college.
Your vote counts just fine for selecting the electors from your own state. Lest you forget, the United States is a Republic made up of 50 states that retain their sovereignty. One of the points behind the Electoral College and US Senate is to prevent the domination of small/sparsely populated states by large/heavily populated ones.
You can have a debate about the wisdom of such a system but calling it a 'farce' seems to convey a pretty poor understanding of our system of Government. It's part of the Constitution. If the Electoral College is a 'farce' then I guess the Bill of Rights is as well.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I think the main problem that's being talked about here stems from a near complete lack of critical thinking among the American public, which is why I think election campaigns are lower-levelled and politicians can get away with anything, i.e. "my opponent = Paris Hilton", "my opponent = terrist", "my opponent = cliché angry black man". I think that's pretty much the root of all evil the USA, a lack critical thinking, which makes the American public believe things that European publics would just scoff off, and that's why you realise you got owned when it's way too late. To put things in perspective, while both the American and the British government were for the war in Iraq, only the American opinion was favourable to it, while the majority of Britons were opposing it from the start. The very fact that the evolution and climate change debates are even taken seriously by most Americans is I believe a clear indicator of that intellectual gap between this country and most other countries you can decently compare them to.
I think it all mainly stems from the quality of education in the USA, and I think every cause of the current and future downfall of the USA can be traced back to educational issues.
You just got troll'd!
Sadly Bill Hicks pointed this out ages ago,with the dems and repubs you are just getting SSDD. The dems will kiss the *.A.As booty a little more,while the repubs kiss a little more defense contractor booty. I'll be voting Barr just because I'm so disgusted with both,not that I think he has a prayer. And so much for Obama and his "I'm for change" BS,since he picked the biggest corporate booty kissing insider he possibly could. After FISA and this I wouldn't vote for him if it was a choice of voting for him or not voting at all. In fact many of the folks I've talked to are so disgusted with him after FISA they have just decided to sit this one out. And frankly I can't say as I blame them. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
George Bush is a leader? WTF are you smoking?
An electoral college that doesn't represent the popular vote is little better than establishing a monarchy by divine providence.
Repeat after me: The United States is a Republic. 50 Sovereign States get votes for POTUS. How you can compare this to a monarchy established by "divine providence" is beyond me. Your state gets X number of votes in the electoral college. Your vote helps to determine who those votes go to.
You can complain about the system or point out flaws but the comparison to monarchy is just absurd.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Sadly you've hit the nail on the head. I "believed" in Obama, but after showing my support and even putting my money where my mouth is, he pulled my pants down and fucked me. FISA and Biden prove it. Don't get me started on McCain, aka Bush 3.0, aka Reagan 4.0. The truth is Bill Hicks and George Carlin were not comedians, they were philosophers.
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
"We recognized the independence of Kosovo on the basis that the local population had the right to decide that they would not be part of Serbia any more."
I will be the first to argue to you that Kosovo was a massive mistake on our part, and I put the blame squarely at the feet of George W Bush. What he did was either open the door for every postage stamp territory in Europe to declare independence... Wales, Catalonia, Sicily, northern Greece; or if we don't let the Basques and every other minority in Europe declare independence, we end up looking like hypocrites that pushed Kosovo just to say "screw you" to Serbia one more time. I believe the invasion of Georgia was direct payback for Kosovo. That doesn't make it right, but I recognize it for what it really is.
"We should now recognize the exact same principle in Georgia. "
Actually, we should just own up to it and say "Kosovo was a mistake", but that's not going to happen.
"But Putin is certainly not an existential threat to the west or to any western government. There is not going to be a Russian invasion of Poland or Slovakia. "
History repeats itself, and disagrees with you. Russia invades its surrounding states when they think they can get away with it. And in the case of Georgia, they judged the limp-spines of Western Europe perfectly.
"Now we could embark on another wingnut fantasy exercise in wishful foreign policy. I don't think that we can risk ayet more neo-con naivety."
NATO's "wingnut philosophy" was created and implemented by Democrats, thanks. Furthermore, it was built on ideas that went back to that famous Republican, Woodrow Wilson... oh wait.
Georgia never agreed to let those territories split, and Russia still has no moral superiority on this, or they would have let Chechnya go a long time ago. They did this just to poke NATO in the eye... and to test them. Consider that test a failure for the alliance. They don't give a shit about the Ossetians any more than you do. That's a convenient excuse. The idea of collective security for free nations isn't a "wingnut fantasy" unless you're one of those Kissenger "realpolitik" types. Russia doesn't have a damned thing to fear from having nations on its border in NATO... unless they were planning on making vassal states of those nations.
This is guaranteed; leave those countries like Georgia out there alone, and sooner or later, Russia will swallow them up, and take it as a sign of western weakness that they were allowed to do so.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
...But, Clinton started out with a stellar academic career (you know, Rhodes scholar), wheras Obama went to a no-name college.
So you've never heard of those no-name colleges "Columbia University" and "Harvard Law School" (where he served as president of the Harvard Law Review)?
Reality has a liberal bias
Yeah, I know, this is supposed to be a forum and not a speech park, but I don't particularly care. Our problem isn't in how we elect the President, it's in how much attention we give him. We expect the President to embody the entirety of the government and make the legislation to make the country work. The problem is that legislation should get debated in Congress, and we don't notice anyone in Congress, unless he happens to take bribes or calls the internet funny names. We don't care about policy, we care about personality, and that's most easily found in a President. If we started to focus on Congressmen a bit more, they might actually start to get something done.
What's this? Another weblog? On transit?
I say this as a guy with a Libertarian Party card in his wallet -- Bob Barr is worse than either Obama or McCain. He's fucking crazy -- seriously.
This is my major problem in this election.
I don't like Obama. His messages of "hope" and "change" seems to be hoping you don't realize the only change he wants is Democrats in office instead of Republicans.
McCain I have other issues with. He gets a little credit for knowing his weaknesses, but not enough.
I'm looking for a 3rd party candidate that isn't a complete fruitcake, and I haven't seen one yet. This is seriously frustrating to me.
Any suggestions?
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?