IP: Chapman, LATimes: Technology issues and the election....

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>
> >Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2000 12:46:04 -0600
> >To: chapman@lists.cc.utexas.edu
> >From: Gary Chapman <gary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu>
> >Subject: L.A. Times Column, 10/30/00 -- Tech and Elections
> >Reply-To: gary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu
> >Sender: owner-chapman@lists.cc.utexas.edu
> >
> >Friends,
> >
> >Below is my Los Angeles Times column for this week, which ran on
> >Monday, October 30, 2000. As always, please feel free to pass this
> >on, but please retain the copyright notice.
> >
> >This is a couple of days late because I was in the D.C. area for the
> >annual convention called "Networks for People," put on by the
> >Technology Opportunities Program of the Department of Commerce. On
> >Monday several of us did a panel discussion on the worker shortage
> >issue.
> >
> >Highlights of the conference: Mario Marino's great keynote speech,
> >which I hope everyone in the tech industry will be able to hear soon;
> >and word of a very interesting project called "Harlem Live," which is
> >an online newspaper put out by Harlem teenagers, assisted by
> >volunteer journalism professionals. Check it out at
> >http://www.harlemlive.org.
> >
> >Other significant news from the TOP program: in the current spending
> >bill approved by Congress last week, their funding tripled for next
> >fiscal year, to $45 million. One of those bizarre artifacts of our
> >increasingly bizarre politics -- the program is finally in the range
> >of where it was supposed to be five years ago, after years of
> >partisan slashing. That's good news for U.S. nonprofits and "digital
> >divide" activists, if the spending figures hold.
> >
> >(Apologies to friends in the D.C. area for not having time to make
> >connections. It was one of those blink-of-an-eye, in-and-out trips.
> >I'll try to do better next time.)
> >
> >Oh, one followup note to a previous column, if anyone is interested:
> >my "open letter" to Mexico's President-elect Vincente Fox, the
> >"Digital Nation" column of October 2nd, was in fact read by Mr. Fox.
> >I heard from his staff that he read the article on a plane flight
> >from Chile to Mexico and he sent words of approval and thanks. There
> >are signs that his staff may be following up on some of the
> >recommendations in the column. Cool!
> >
> >-- Gary
> >
> >gary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu
> >
> >    ------------------------------------------
> >
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> >    ------------------------------------------
> >
> >DIGITAL NATION
> >
> >Monday, October 30, 2000
> >
> >Technology Issues Largely Missing From Campaigns' Radar Screens
> >
> >By Gary Chapman
> >
> >Copyright 2000, The Los Angeles Times, All Rights Reserved
> >
> >Why haven't technology and the issues of the "new economy" made more
> >of an impact on this year's election campaigns? That's the question
> >that Times columnist Ronald Brownstein asked last week, and others
> >have wondered about it too.
> >
> >Many commentators have noted that Al Gore has long been known for his
> >affinity with technology-related public policy; he essentially ran as
> >a high-tech candidate in 1992 and 1996.
> >
> >However, this year "Gore himself almost never talks about the new
> >economy anymore," said Brownstein, "and instead looks mostly
> >downscale for support."
> >
> >George W. Bush has assembled a heavyweight team of technology
> >advisors and supporters, including Michael Dell, venture capitalist
> >Floyd Kvamme, former Netscape chief James Barksdale, and Intel's
> >Chairman Andy Grove, among others. Gore has his list too, the
> >"Gore-Techs" like Steve Jobs, venture capitalist John Doerr, and
> >Netscape co-founder Marc Andreeson.
> >
> >But neither of these groups has had any impact on the campaigns. The
> >candidates' standings in the polls would almost certainly be exactly
> >the same as they are today if these new-economy leaders had stayed
> >clear and remained silent about their political preferences.
> >
> >Why is this? After all, in 1992 the endorsement of 150 Silicon Valley
> >executives arguably put Bill Clinton and Gore over the top, signaling
> >their acceptability to the business leaders of that time. Now the
> >moguls of the new economy can hardly get a headline.
> >
> >There are several reasons for this change in the political environment.
> >
> >First, most Americans are flat bored by all the jabber about high
> >tech. The tornado of talk about the new economy is an obsession with
> >an extremely thin layer of affluent and technically proficient
> >people, and with opinion-makers and pundits. But if you get away from
> >the dozen or so high-tech centers in the U.S., this obsession rapidly
> >fades.
> >
> >Second, most leaders of the new economy, and the journalists who
> >cover it, are not routinely exposed to the bland and prosaic
> >conversations of average Americans who see one another at church, or
> >at occupational conventions and social gatherings, and where the
> >topics are more likely to be sports and recipes than "synergy" and
> >"B-to-B" (business-to-business) e-commerce. In fact, the
> >ever-changing jargon of high-tech business is pure gobbledygook to
> >most Americans, a fact that new economy enthusiasts have a hard time
> >grasping.
> >
> >Next, the two candidates' positions on technology-related issues are
> >close enough that you have to look hard for differences, precisely
> >because both men are so beholden to the same narrow constituency.
> >Neither candidate will risk losing access to the financial resources
> >of new economy leaders. And those high-tech leaders have developed a
> >uniform, self-serving and colorless agenda, built entirely on their
> >belief that what's good for high tech is good for the country, and
> >Bush and Gore can't step outside the lines by recommending something
> >different or even interesting.
> >
> >When all that is combined with the two candidates' very different
> >positions on other issues -- such as abortion, guns, taxes, Social
> >Security and spending -- it's not surprising that there isn't much
> >public demand for a discussion about high tech and government.
> >
> >However, there is one big difference between the vice president and
> >Texas Gov. Bush when the subject is technology: how they feel about
> >it, and how they relate to technology.
> >
> >Gore is an overt techie, a guy fascinated with technology itself. In
> >the current issue of Red Herring magazine is an interview with Gore
> >that's astonishing for its detail and for his familiarity with arcane
> >computer science concepts. He draws analogies, for example, between
> >the development of modern government and the chronological transition
> >from "vector processing" to "parallel processing" in computer
> >architectures.
> >
> >If Gore spoke like this to general audiences on the campaign stump,
> >most of his listeners would have gone into a collective coma. (The
> >interview lends credence to the opinion, reportedly held by President
> >Clinton, that Gore would have been happier as an academic than a
> >politician, a job he doesn't really seem to enjoy.)
> >
> >Gore has the role of the public technology visionary, the man who
> >would send us into space, cure diseases, end hunger, clean up the
> >environment and energetically celebrate scientists and engineers. His
> >attraction to technology is romantic -- it's his key to a much more
> >interesting future. He's the straight-A student who knows his science
> >and thinks it's all great.
> >
> >Bush, however, doesn't really care about technology except to the
> >extent that it makes people rich and the nation powerful. He finds no
> >inherently fascinating features within computers or the Internet, the
> >way Gore obviously does. Bush is probably much more representative of
> >American men than Gore in this respect -- the Internet only became
> >interesting to most men when people started making money from it.
> >
> >Bush is in the Ronald Reagan mold. He spends his spare time at his
> >ranch near Waco, Texas, and he calls himself a "windshield rancher,"
> >someone who doesn't do the work but gets to drive around his
> >property. This might be the male ideal of the "patron," the
> >landowner, which is tied to the manly arts of sports, hunting,
> >fishing and owning large animals. Fascination with technology is not
> >viewed as feminine, but merely . . . well, "geeky."
> >
> >For Bush, technology is important as a driving force in the economy
> >and as a way to keep the U.S. No. 1 in military power. But it's not
> >interesting in itself.
> >
> >Granted, most Americans have already grasped the differences between
> >the two candidates, a message encoded in their personalities.
> >
> >It's a message Americans understand, even without details about
> >policy disputes, because it's in a language that's familiar to all of
> >us.
> >
> >Gary Chapman is director of The 21st Century Project at the
> >University of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at
> >> >gary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu.
> >
> >    ------------------------------------------
> >
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