How technology scored Obama the nomination and why tech isn’t an election issue

I agree with the above comment. 1-EDN comment tool stinks. And 2-this editorial is fair. To those above who have unsubscribed, that's your mistake.

EDN ate half my above post. Here's the full text: Am I missing something here, as I can spot no trace of any political bias in the original article? The author's opinions are flagged as such, and aren't particularly contentious anyway. I interpret them thus: (1) Obama beat Clinton partly because his team made greater use of technological resources for the Democratic nomination campaign; (2) None of the presidential candidates is pushing a technological platform. Nothing to get upset about there, I think. The parallels with Kennedy and Nixon are interesting. There was a famous pre-election TV debate between the two, and a very interesting split in the polls the day after. People who heard the debate on radio tended to think Nixon had the upper hand, whereas the TV viewers swung towards Kennedy. JFK knew the power of TV and presented a very deliberate and definite image, whereas Nixon was sweating profusely and looked under pressure. That wasn't all that swung JFK's narrow victory, but it helped, and without his full use of this new televisual style he may well have lost. Now all politicians are groomed to be TV-savvy, it may be effective use of the internet that gives a candidate the edge.

Am I missing something here, as I can''t spot any trace of political bias in the original article? The author''s opinions are flagged as such, and aren''t particularly contentious anyway. I interpret them thus: (1) Obama beat Clinton partly because his team made greater use of technological resources for the Democratic nomination campaign

Creationists Unite! Without techology -- we would not have discovered the world is not flat, and that humans and chimps are related. The Sun would be at the center of the universe and there would be no abortion, only throwing deformed babies off of cliffs. Technology be damned. No back to watching "Touched by an Angel" on Hulu.

Sure, technology probably has most answers but they may not be known, Hyped up education and research are indicated. A case in point is the disposal of nuclear waste. I say lets put it in concrete filled caskets and drop into a deep-ocean trench where the subducting tectonic plate will carry it down to the magma where the casket and contents are melted, You say the radiation from the waste may destroy the casket and releasing the contents before it is covered by the overriding plate. A valid concern. Should not testing be ongoing now? Of course!! Nothing can be done, however, without the consent and approval of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This will not happen without a major push/inquiry/funding fights and eternal arguments and objrctions. Answer? Strong and technically aware political leadership. McCain or Obama? I''''d choose the latter.

Technolgy, I say common sense is what is needed. Enough of high in the sky rhetoric and pandering to political bases. We need oil here and now and the Democrats refuse to allow drilling even though the whole world is because of their environmental lobby. Republicans sat on their hind ends because they thought that the free market has the answer to everything so auto companies invested in SUVs and ignored the trend of rising oil prices. Give me common sense first and then technology can be put to good use.

This is jusst another feeble attempt of yours to promote a political agenda under the guise of "technology". Your editorial on global warming was even worse. Either change the name of your publication or redirect your focus. I am now "unsubscribed" as well.

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Lack of interest in technology is symptomatic of another issue: lack of interest in long-term planning or effort. Neither the Executive nor the Legislative Branch, and neither political party, is seriously interested in long-term solutions to problems. They want quick wins and "low-hanging fruit". There is still some of that out there, but the challenges we face as a nation don''t lend themselves to that kind of solution. A corollary to this is that the solutions for the challenges we deal with are going to require the active participation by most if not all of the American citizenry. Our leadership for the past 40+ years has been perfectly happy to play to their political bases (who are the ones funding them for office) while paying lip service to the need for real shared sacrifice and real compromise. Again, the solutions to the problems we face don''t allow for half the country to not really be on board, and absolutely don''t allow for large groups within the country, regardless of persuasion, to continue to proclaim their own superiority and denigrate and demonize those who don''t agree. Finally, lack of interest in technology reflects a lack of desire to deal with issues whose parameters are not subject to emotional manipulation. As an example, while "global warming" has been good for emotional drum-beating, there has been no serious effort anywhere to require that the findings of either the proponents or the opponents be thoroughly and ruthlessly sifted to find holes in facts and logic and real uncertainty in math models. That kind of intellectual sloppiness is acceptable only if the real goal is not to find facts and truth and construct a real solution, but rather to use the issue as a way to either just pull in votes and political contributions (often the goal of the political types) or to further other agendas (often the goal of the advocates of one position or another). When a ruthless, non-emotional analysis of all the sub-issues related to global warming is completed, subjected to equally ruthless, non-emotional peer review, and corrected per that review to be as accurate and complete as possible, THEN it will not only be time to begin the serious job of dealing with the issue head on, but the proper foundation will have been laid to help get the ignorant, the unwilling, and the out-and-out recalcitrant to get on board the train. It''s not going to happen, though, because too few people understand the need to sift out intellectual chaff and process information logically rather than "feeling" their way through life. I use global warming as an example, but the same process applies to all the other issues we are failing to deal with. I would like to see us be more committed to excellence in how we and our leadership deal with these issues. The only way I know to do this is for us to (a) return to a real understanding of the need to work together, sacrifice together, and refuse to be manipulated into hating each other, (b) understand the role of politics in government today, (c) determine where we tell the political processes to end, and (d) make it clear to our leadership (by voting a large number of them out of office) that they''d better change their ways to keep up with us.

Read chapter 5 of his book - it talks about how Obama met with Google, his proposals to increase grants for colleges to do more research, expand the number of engineers, and help with college loan costs. I think there is a lot there.

If Obama is elected the economy will suffer so much from higher taxes and greatly expanded government powers that technology will decline with it. Socialism doesn't work!

Actually JFK could have handled the Cuban missile crisis a whole lot better. As far as technology goes it has given the candidates a direct and effective way to contact voters and to collect vast amounts of campaign funding. But lets not forget the HD TV, if those boys don't power up the HD transmissions before Feb. 2009 a lot of people may just quit watching TV, since they will not sudscribe to cable or sattelite TV, which includes me... This new Tech/contribution orver the internet enabled Ron Paul to collect about 30 million, not enough to win, however, he only got 7% of the vote. I think most of his small contributors did not voe...

BobS has it right on! But government will invest some money in research because it is key to our economy. What is really at stake are our freedoms if Obama gets elected. This is the worst set of candidates that I have seen in my lifetime for a presidential election. Neither one will help lower the price of gasoline. Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay less.

All of the three (now two) remaining candidates are in favor of raising the H1B visa limits. I have not heard a peep against outsourcing from anybody other than Kucinich, early on in the primaries. Good luck, Engineers. It has been nice knowing you.

"... the lack of tech discussion among those looking to become America?s next leader is irritating and foolhardy." No! - the lack of tech discussion among those looking to become America's next leader is comforting. If politicians were talking about it, we could expect tech to go the way of health care, public education, drug policy, welfare, and every other aspect of our lives that the federal government has ruined while trying to fix non-existent problems. Please, McCain and Obama, just leave tech alone!

The article reads like CNN or CBS "L word" bias Iam now unsubscribed Thanks for your intellect VJS

It would have actually been nice to have the candidates'' proposals on tech elaborated on, here.... I know Sen. McCain has proposed building 700 nuclear power plants. Senator Clinton seems to be fairly pro-NASA. Senator Obama wants to delay the Constellation program. That''s a start, but not enough to go by...

It would have actually been nice to have the candidates'' proposals on tech elaborated on, here.... I know Sen. McCain has proposed building 700 nuclear power plants. Senator Clinton seems to be fairly pro-NASA. Senator Obama wants to delay the Constellation program. That''s a start, but not enough to go by...

There are five major concerns, in my view. Energy, Clean Water, Waste Management, Health care, and incenting technology development. "global warming" appears to be the politician's way of attempting to deal with the first three, as an 'external threat'. (whether you believe in the sun's variations or not.) Health care may be a bean-counters nightmare. It surely is a healthcare provider's nightmare, and one can only hope for a rational proposal here. And then comes "technology". The first problem is, people can say the word, and not know whether they're talking about information storage, communications bandwidth, or material science research. Having technically illiterate candidates doesn't tend to lead to intelligent investment policy. On the other hand, we at least have two (three?) leaders available to us, which is more than we can say about the last presidential election. Where, oh where, I wonder, will the metaphorical next transistor or IC come from, if we don't incent pure research in this country? Bangalore or Beijing?

Al Gore was the guest speaker at the 2007 Embedded Systems Conference - West in San Jose. Would it be possible to have Obama as a guest speaker at the Embedded Systems Conference - East in 2008?

Could be find out and get a report on how the Candidates Personal Staff's make use of Technology? How well they understand and use technology will be an indicator of how well they might deal with technology issues as a leader!

In terms of "technology" I'm starting to wonder if Senator McCain is beginning to show signs of deterioration due to stress, injury, and the effects of interrogation technology suffered while a POW in service to our country.

Tech is not an issue, but energy is? Eh?

No one cannot ignore how important technology is to this country, and the world. It enables us to greatly improve people''s lives thru medical technology, military applications of communications (DARPA & the internet), improved farming with the use of laser leveling of fields for better distribution of water etc. as well as the hopeful development and application of inexpensive power. It is critical to have technology move us away as fast as practicable to more predictable, human friendly and controllabe sources of energy. Foremost in these decisions will be which is in the best interest of the United States. The upcoming President will only be one facet of this decision making process. The Congress must either change its current apathetic and socialist slant or new members of Congress must be elected as soon as possible to take advantage of this closing window of opportunity. The leaders, innovators and entreprenaurs of industry must help make these priorities become realities thru generous contribution of time, clear directions to educational and political leaders and monetary contributions. We need to embark on a plan similar to the Marshall Plan which will make technology and its applications foremost in the long list of priorities for this country.