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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