John McCain, Internet dunce

Why the Arizona senator, who can barely Google, is not the chief that an increasingly technological world requires.

By Amanda Terkel

Read more: Internet, John McCain, Politics, News

Salon photo composite

Aug. 13, 2008 | John McCain spends a lot of time talking about Iraq. He also likes talking about terrorism. But one issue he rarely touches upon is technology. In fact, under the "Issues" section of his campaign Web site, technology isn't even an option. He has people like former Hewlett-Packard chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina and former eBay president and CEO Meg Whitman advising him. But the campaign usually deploys them to talk about economic issues like tax cuts and gas prices.

Most of the tech talk surrounding McCain has so far focused on his self-admitted computer ignorance. "I'm an illiterate who has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance that I can get," McCain said in an interview with Yahoo/Politico earlier this year. Last month, McCain admitted that he has "never felt the particular need to e-mail."

Tech has put the McCain campaign on the defensive about whether a president needs to be actively engaged in the Internet to lead an increasingly wired country. At the tech-savvy Personal Democracy Forum conference in June, Mark Soohoo, McCain's deputy e-campaign director, drew snickers when he desperately insisted, "You don't necessarily have to use a computer to understand how it shapes the country ... John McCain is aware of the Internet."

It has also brought up the unsavory topic of McCain's age, with people wondering if his lack of technology skills is simply part of the "generational gap" between him and younger voters. But even in his own demographic -- white, college-educated men over 65 -- McCain is an outlier. According to new data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, approximately three-quarters of this group use the Internet. "Basically, John is a technological troglodyte, and proud of it," said former Federal Communications Commission chairman and Obama supporter Reed Hundt.

One area being overlooked, however, is the need for progress on America's technological infrastructure.

The United States currently sticks out globally for having no national broadband policy -- a plan to give every American access to affordable high-speed Internet connections. Roughly half of the country's households still lack broadband connections, and the United States continues to fall behind. "Broadband will soon be an indispensable communication technology affecting the way we learn, the way we work, and the way we communicate," Charles Benton, chairman and CEO of the Benton Foundation, wrote in June. "However, at the dawn of this Digital Age, those who could benefit the most from this economically empowering technology are also those most likely to be left without access because of where they live or how much money they make."

Science and technology certainly haven't been priorities under the Bush administration. A 2005 report by the National Academy of Sciences concluded, "The scientific and technical building blocks of our economic leadership are eroding at a time when many other nations are gathering strength." McCain has given little indication that he intends to be much different, and that has some tech experts worried.

"What concerns me is that [McCain] will do as George Bush did, which is to make technology an issue related to how he raises money to run the government or to fund campaigns, and not as an independent issue that is important to grow America," said Stanford University professor and Internet expert Lawrence Lessig. "Technology for the Bush administration is a total non-issue, even though that was the thing that drove most growth in 1992 to 2003. And the reason I think he'd be led to that is because [he's] a guy who doesn't understand anything about technology in the first place."

McCain has not released a tech platform, although he may do so this week. On this front, he lags behind Barack Obama, who unveiled his last year. Mark Lloyd, vice president of strategic initiatives at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, pointed to the fact that some of McCain's top advisors also advised Bush. "I think that the people who determine his tech policies, like [former FCC chairman] Michael Powell and a few others who were his top advisors, will talk, as Bush has talked about, getting advanced telecommunications services to all Americans," said Lloyd. "But mainly their model is to allow the industry to determine what all this means, which is the danger."

These worries aren't unfounded. McCain has a long record of blocking progress on tech issues. He has served as a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation since coming to the Senate in 1987, and as chairman from 1997 to 2001, and again from 2003 to 2005. He oversaw the committee at a crucial point in history: the explosion of the Internet economy.

During McCain's tenure, the committee oversaw the implementation of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the first major overhaul of U.S. telecom law in nearly 62 years. McCain had to choose whether to be pro-competition or pro-big business. In most instances, he chose the latter route, by opposing increased Internet access for schools and libraries, backing large mergers to benefit the telecom industry and supporting a virtual system of haves and have-nots.

Lloyd said the Senate Commerce Committee during this time devoted "far too little oversight to the good things in the 1996 Telecommunications Act." Those included "making sure there were equal opportunities to participate in the industry afforded to women and minorities and small businesses." He added, "There was a rush to essentially allow industry players to get into each other's businesses and consolidate in the industry."

McCain's long history in the Senate has one main theme: Government can do no good in telecom policy. "McCain is a pure free-market ideologue," said Mark Cooper, director of research at the Consumer Federation of America. "Their [Bush and McCain] belief is that government should just get out of the way and let the private sector do it. Clearly, in the financial markets, the private sector has done a horrible job."

Other media experts have characterized McCain's Commerce Committee tenure as a lost opportunity to make progress on telecommunications policy. "The thing that stands out for his entire tenure is that he has never had a priority, and has never had, to my knowledge, any accomplishment of any kind at all," said Hundt.

Next page: McCain has been very good for large telecom corporations