Slashdot Mirror
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.
That's the original post title and post by Aviran that's merely alluded to here... why the need to neutralize it? Would you have neutralized it for a Republican candidate?
Because Hillary has extremely high negatives. Rush, Savage, Hannity, Malkin, O'Reilly, etc. would have a field day tearing her apart. Obama would look extremely bad for picking her- we're talking about losing a large number of moderates and nearly all the Republicans who would otherwise be willing to vote for Obama.
Care about privacy? Read this!
Look:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/indus.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00001669
Examining the top industry contributions to Biden, there is a TV/movies/music presence there, but it's less than a 20th of his top contributor. Also note that the RIAA/MPAA doesn't even rate a mention in the individual company contributors.
Basically, it looks like he formulated that opinion on IP without ... outside help.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
The VP most certainly does set policy especially considering he is the one who carries a tie breaking vote in the Senate. He is the only person in the Executive Branch that has direct voting power in the legislative. Given the lame duck Senate we have today, that tie breaker vote does set policy.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
Being a citizen is hard work if you do it right, and if you do it right you can have influence beyond your own vote.
Which doesn't mean waste your time arguing and confronting people, it means drawing them out about what matters to them and pointing out how the candidate you back can help. It means researching the under-reported local races and sharing the results with neighbors who want to vote but don't know the candidates. It means making get-out-the-vote phone calls, and registration drives in friendly territory.
Seriously, a tie-breaking vote only ever comes up about once a year. It's barely ever an issue, considering how many votes congress passes.
And congress is only lame duck because Neo-conservatives have set an all-time record for filibusters, and because Bush will veto everything the Dems do get through. They're trying to cause what seems like a shutdown of Congress, and then blame the Dems for it -- and the public is completely buying it. I tried to argue this same point to someone else, and was only met with the response "no, it's because the Democrats are a bunch of useless idiots." That's almost word for word, and it represents way too many people's thought processes.
Alternate theory: I read a book recently, called "Team of Rivals", about Abraham Lincoln's presidency. This is a book that Obama claims has influenced him heavily, especially his vision for his own presidency.
Lincoln could have chosen yes-men for his cabinet. Inexperienced men would be grateful for their positions, and feel less qualified to disagree with their boss. Instead, he gave very prominent positions (State, Treasury, War, etc.) to the very men he had defeated in the Republican nomination fight. Lincoln, having served only one term in the House, was about as inexperienced as presidents came. For much of his first term, critics within his own party consoled themselves with the false assumption that the Secretary of State was actually pulling the strings.
All that infighting led to quite a few ego-driven disputes that Lincoln had to step in and resolve. It also led to an atmosphere where doubts were aired, and where issues got brought up and resolved before decisions were made.
The fact is, Obama knew full well that tapping an experienced, opinionated foreign policy wonk with decades more senate experience would highlight his inexperience. If he was feeling really insecure, he could have gone with a one-termer like Tom Kaine or Jim Webb. If he wanted to surround himself with yes-men, he could find a VP whose views more closely mirrored his own. I hope Obama really does try to build a Lincolnish presidency, where the (sometimes very public) infighting usually led to better choices.
Biden seems like a good start.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!