Ah, the election season; some like it more than football season. I wouldn’t go that far seeing as Brett Favre news received more coverage than Obama and McCain during the Packers/Favre drama. Anyway, here at Tech Dune the most important thing on my/your mind when reading is ‘technology’. So, I figured it would be a good idea to take a look at the different presidential nominees and find out just where they stand on issues of technology, and so forth.

To keep it fair and unbiased I will be featuring Barack Obama today, and John McCain tomorrow. Save the “he got featured first” non-sense for the 1st graders.

In the words of Obama himself (from his campaign website), “Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age. Let’s set high standards for our schools and give them the resources they need to succeed. Let’s recruit a new army of teachers, and give them better pay and more support in exchange for more accountability. Let’s make college more affordable, and let’s invest in scientific research, and let’s lay down broadband lines through the heart of inner cities and rural towns all across America.”

All of things he mentions in the excerpt from a speech are pretty broad. So just what specific things has Obama mentioned throughout his campaign that deals with technology?

One of Obama’s largest tech policy issues is ‘Net neutrality’. You go to any blog, forum, or news site that deals with the internet and you’re bound to run into someone bringing up the issue of net neutrality. The basic principle is to keep the internet as open to the masses as possbile. It means barring ISPs from being able to censor material, and to make sure all sites are given a fair chance to succeed through their service.

One of the more interesting tech policies to be found on Obama’s website, is his plan to make the Government ‘2.0′. Obama wants the government to be more open with its information, and mentions making this info available via the internet.

Here’s some of his selling points about his Government 2.0 proposal: “Making government data available online in universally accessible formats to allow citizens to make use of that data to comment, derive value, and take action in their own communities. Greater access to environmental data, for example, will help citizens learn about pollution in their communities, provide information about local conditions back to government and empower people to protect themselves.”

“Lifting the veil from secret deals in Washington with a web site, a search engine, and other web tools that enable citizens easily to track online federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and lobbyist contacts with government officials.”

There are other things mentioned on the site, but all are pretty cookie cutter… R&D Tax Credit, investing in Science, upgrading education technology. These are all things that have been mentioned to death, but for some reason it’s taking awhile to see results. If Obama happens to win, maybe we’ll see more progress (maybe not).

Although there was some general mentions to tech policy change; The Government 2.0 idea and his specific views on net neutrality stood out in my mind. All of you republicans out there, your fill of McCain tech policies will be coming tomorrow so keep an eye out.

What are your views on what Obama has mentioned? Is it all just smoke to garner support from the up and coming internet crowd? Will Obama keep a blog when he’s in the White House?

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