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Capital Commentary: McCain and the Internet: Why It Matters

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A series of dispatches from Washington and the campaign trail.

By Garrett M. Graff Published Monday, July 28, 2008

There’s been a lot of conversation in the presidential race so far about the impact of the Internet. From online videos and online fund-raising to social networking sites and blogs, this race is being shaped at every level by what takes place online. Much of this attention, rightly so, has gone to Barack Obama, whose campaign more than any other in history has been funded and powered by online organization. But the subject of the Internet may have just as big an impact on John McCain’s campaign.

There was a time back in 2000 during his maverick, Straight Talk Express-debuting run for the White House when John McCain was the master of online technology. It was, after all, his surprisingly strong online fundraising haul that allowed him to stay competitive after a strong showing in the New Hampshire primary. The Web back then was a different place. In the parlance of the Internet, it was Web 1.0—brochure-like Web sites focused mostly on e-commerce with little to no interactivity. It was a one-way medium.

Over the last eight years, there’s been an explosion of innovation online as the Web moved into what is now known as Web 2.0—highly interactive and engaging Web sites characterized by information sharing and collaboration on projects, as well as sites like Facebook, MySpace, Blogger, YouTube, Flickr, and Digg that allow users to network, create content, and build communities. John McCain seems to have missed this movement—an oversight that may have profound implications both for his campaign and the entire nation if he is to become president.

Last fall in the Republican YouTube debate, Senator McCain cited “information technology” as an area where he would likely need assistance from a vice president. It’s a stunning admission and one we probably wouldn’t tolerate in any other policy issue. Even given the nearly nine months since the debate, McCain still has no technology plan. Whereas Senator McCain devotes prominent real estate on his Web site to issues like “the sanctity of life,” the Second Amendment, and “judicial philosophy,” he has no entry on technology. Barack Obama, meanwhile, prominently features a plan to provide “technology and innovation for new agenda,” an issue he addressed not only in his announcement speech in February 2007 but also in a far-reaching speech at Google headquarters in California late last year.

Plenty of tech material and policy crossed McCain’s desk as chair of the Senate Commerce Committee and, at times, he has proven a leader on tech policy in the past. Today, though, that leadership seems to have gone missing. Former FCC Chair Michael Powell is currently drafting a tech policy for the candidate, and Powell promised one blogger this month that he wouldn’t work for a candidate who didn’t believe in technology. But the issue remains that the candidate himself is computer illiterate.

As McCain told the New York Times earlier this month, “he had not mastered how to use the Internet and relied on his wife and aides like Mark Salter, a senior adviser, and Brooke Buchanan, his press secretary, to get him online to read newspapers (though he prefers reading those the old-fashioned way) and political Web sites and blogs.” “They go on for me,” he told the Times. “I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. I don’t expect to be a great communicator, I don’t expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need.” He also doesn’t use a Blackberry or e-mail, saying “I’ve never felt the particular need to e-mail.”

It’s not so much that John McCain needs to personally blog or Twitter as president. In fact, I don’t want the next president blogging or sending text messages from the Oval Office. The President of the United States has communication mechanisms, systems, processes, and staff available to no other human being on earth whenever he has something to say. There’s no need to login to Wordpress if you’re the president of the United States and any network or news agency would be happy to carry your message live to the world.

Instead, McCain’s ignorance of the operations of the Internet today, I believe, says more about the candidate’s intellectual curiosity than it does about his technical prowess. While he should be commended for recognizing where he lacks sufficient knowledge, I’m much more concerned about how, as the Internet changed everything over the last decade, John McCain never sat down and said to himself, “I should really figure this stuff out for myself. This crazy Internet thing is going to be big and I need to understand it.” In an information age, we should demand candidates and elected officials who at least seek out information about the tools and systems changing our world.

The Internet in the last decade has broken down borders in diplomacy and commerce, in education and business, in the military and religion. It’s the primary source for news and information for the Millenials, the largest generation the United States has ever seen. It’s an increasingly important part of business and a source for everything from groceries to dates to DVDs. Here in Washington, Mayor Adrian Fenty’s prolific BlackBerry-ing has helped underscore his image as a new reformer for a new age.

The fact that John McCain hasn’t yet learned how to use the Internet himself puts him not just at odds with most of the rest of the nation but, in fact, with many people in his own age bracket. More than a third of Americans 65 and older use the Internet, according to the May 2008 numbers from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Work by Forrester Research, which uses different age brackets, shows that more than a third of Americans over 55 regularly read blogs and online forums, watch videos, or listen to podcasts. This “Internet thing” isn’t some crazy person’s niche; it will be the driving force behind the next half-century of America’s economic growth. That John McCain isn’t part of that group of “wired seniors” should give us all pause coming into this fall.

The campaign’s online tactics are leaving even its own supporters baffled. David All, a Republican tech strategist, complained to the Washington Post last week that while Barack Obama’s campaign has been building a robust cell phone-based campaign strategy, John McCain’s campaign has never sent All a text message. The campaign’s weekly “McCain Update” e-mail goes out late on Friday evenings, a time when few people are around to read it, and its regular e-mails are so wordy and devoid of actions that the nonpartisan site TechPresident.com, which tracks online efforts, has launched a “McCain e-mail watch” feature. Everyone wants McCain’s campaign to “get” technology—we all have a vested interest in candidates and officials today understanding where the future is heading.

On blogs, message boards, and e-mail lists, McCain’s seeming inability to connect with the online generation is quickly becoming a proxy issue about his age—is he so old and so out of touch that he doesn’t understand the reality of today’s world? Couple this tech ignorance with McCain’s admissions about how he’s not strong on economic issues and one is left to wonder whether he has the right stuff to lead in the digital age.

What kind of president would he be in a world where just as much commerce travels over fiber optics as over interstate highways? What kind of president would he be in a world where, for the first time this year, there are now more users of the Internet in China than in the United States? What kind of president will he be in a world where the greatest force for Iranian democracy today is its thriving Persian blog community?

The answer is: We don’t know.

Former Virginia Governor Mark Warner, during his brief run for the presidency, promised that the 2008 race wouldn’t be about left versus right but instead about the future versus the past. There’s no better issue on which McCain could prove he’s a candidate of the future than tech. So far, he’s falling far short.

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Comments

Let me just start by saying I am sick of candidates TV Commercials that talk about what the other has done that would be considered bad. Most are not important, lies, or stretching the truth. They should only talk about themselves, and what they plan to do, and let the public decide who’s face they want to see for the next four years. We need change, we need to get up and dust ourselves off, let’s start by giving the republican party a four year vacation out of the white house.

Posted by: Mike Blaisdell, Oct 01, 2008 08:03:24 PM

McCain and Leiberman keep referring to Obama as a young man. Well, he’s 47 and many Americans are grandparents at that age. If that "young man" is old enough to be a grandfather - what does that make McvCain

Posted by: john lyon, Aug 05, 2008 03:53:50 AM

Face it, he has no clue about the internet and never will, frankly it makes him appear to be a dummy in today’s day and age.

Posted by: King's Clothes, Aug 03, 2008 02:30:40 PM

If McCain interviewed for my company, he would be declined due to a lack of basic computer skills. Do you really want someone who you would not hire to work for your small business to run our country?

Posted by: Angela, Aug 01, 2008 09:14:00 AM

I respect Garrett’s opinion greatly as well as his experience, but offer a different view: the Internet really DOESN’T matter: http://tinyurl.com/5bn4wf.

Mark Story

Posted by: Mark Story, Jul 30, 2008 03:54:22 AM

Sad commentary on a confused man.
I am not surprised since he cannot remember what he has said form week to week. How could he remember passwords and user IDs?

Posted by: Mitch tobias, Jul 29, 2008 02:35:28 PM

McCain’s lack of intellectual curiousity has been well documented although often ignored by handlers and friends in the media who are more consumed with the he selling of John McCain, the "Maverick" "War Hero" and Naval Aviator with the result that many perceive him as the Top Gun character Tom Cruise played, come to life. McCain’s legend is Fiction. "WAR HEROES" do not run around telling anyone and everyone that they can find how how damn heroic that they are. Do they? Ever listen to Bruce Springsteen’s Song Glory Days? Heroes do not live to tell tall tales. Myths do. Heroes die. Liars never tell you how they graduated 4th from the bottom of their class at the Naval Academy, how their legacy admission is the only reason they were not expelled or that they were never promoted to Admiral because McCain was of low intellect, had little if any intellectual curiousity about flight plan preparation, crashed numerous military aircraft and was hardly viewed by anyone at the Naval Academy as a serious Naval Aviator. In fact, he was more enamored with the title "Naval Aviator" than doing the actual work to become a proficient pilot. Wesley Clark was right when he said that John McCain being shot down and tortured hardly makes him qualified or an expert in miliary matters. Likewise, the internet, the central communications tool of our time and McCain once again simply has little need for it. Are we to hope as Americans that the things John McCain becomes proficient at understanding are those things central to the lives of real Americans? 72 years old is hardly the time for a leopard to change its spots.

Posted by: Christopher London, Jul 29, 2008 10:16:28 AM

It is just scary this running defense that the MSM is running for McCain,But I think there may be some legislation before congress from the telecom industry,that a Obama administration will not pass.

Posted by: eniobob, Jul 29, 2008 07:21:59 AM

Senator McCain has a teenaged daughter at home, I can understand relying on aides for political information and deciding you can skip one of the overwhelming cultural movements of your time.

But to see your child walking confidently into a world that matters to her and not go visit that place regularly? To hear that she’d sent you three e-mails and not know you had to be able to answer in kind?

He’s not just missing political and economic implications. He’s missing social and emotional ones, and he’s missing them big time.

And, yeah, I think that speaks to his readiness to understand other coming challenges from every direction.

Posted by: sporcupine, Jul 29, 2008 07:05:36 AM

While I concur with most of your remarks, Sen. McCain isn’t that different from other executives of his age. The internet is something he has assistants to handle for him. He’s from a bygone era when executives had secretaries to handle communications.
Younger executives, like Sen. Obama are more tech savvy and don’t need nearly the amount of admin support of someone McCain’s age.

Obama is a man of these times. McCain’s time has past.

Posted by: RIck Roberts, Jul 28, 2008 12:33:40 PM

Well said. I had a poll on my blog re how much it matters that McCain can email and surf the Internet. 3 out of 4 people said it matters. Thanks, too, for the twitter heads-up re this article. I posted about it just now here http://tinyurl.com/6cmlzr/. jeanwarner

Posted by: Jean Warner, Jul 28, 2008 12:07:55 PM

Voters now have to depend on the internet to research the candidates. We cannot depend on mainstream media to even ask one simple question.

Journalists within the old school mainstream media indulge themselves with numerous articles on his status as a POW, inform us each and every time one vet speaks out about the torture of John McCain, even going into great detail about the types of torture and the number of years the man was tortured. Yet, it never enters their minds to ever ask the obvious question - "Could the man running for the highest office in the United States of America, a job with incredible stress, possibly suffer from PTSD?"

Google the general web with the words ’mccain ptsd’ and over one half million hits will appear. Most are articles by veteran groups having to do with McCain’s lack of support for veterans and his actions to shut down the MIA/POW investigations, while many others discuss the very real possibility he suffers from PTSD. Now go to Google News section and enter ’mccain ptsd’. To be fair, google the entire archive. Out of a grand total of approximately 80 hits, you will be lucky to pull up one or two articles addressing this issue.

As you can see, there is NO mainstream media coverage questioning whether John McCain may suffer from PTSD or perhaps LOSS. They are more than willing to write about the details of McCain’s torture but not the probable result of said torture.

“Among U.S. servicemen taken captive during the Korean War, as many as nine out of 10 survivors may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental disorders more than 35 years after their
release" [ psychologist Patricia B. Sutker of the New Orleans Veterans Administration Medical Center and her colleagues report in the January AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY]

McCain has a nine out of ten chance of having PTSD, displays many of the symptoms, yet no one in mainstream media will question him, a candidate for Commander in Chief, a man who has an infamous history of an out of control temper who refuses to release his full military medical records to the general press.

’Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, can result from wartime trauma such as suffering wounds or witnessing others being hurt. Symptoms include irritability or outbursts of anger, sleep difficulties, trouble
concentrating, extreme vigilance and an exaggerated startle response.’

http://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSN17282413

http://ptsd.about.com/od/symptomsanddiagnosis/a/PTSDsymptoms.htm

Before the Iraq invasion, many of us begged mainstream media to fully question the history and events leading us into war. They refused. To their credit, however, they ’apologized’ years later for their failure to fully report these events. Today, we ask them to help the voters answer one simple question: ’Is John McCain emotionally fit for the most stressful job in our country, the President of the United States, our Commander in Chief?"

Journalists have a choice. They can continue to tiptoe around the elephant in the room, put a politician before country, violate the spirit of journalism and ignore the ethics that bind them, or they can do their job.

They can give us the full McCain.

Posted by: MsSwin, Jul 28, 2008 12:02:12 PM

Heck, what if the next president did indeed blog from the White House and tweet from Air force One? It would usher in a whole new era of openness... And what if he did it as a commercial / quasi-commercial endeavour? Speaker fees after the Oval Office? Forget about it, this could prove much more lucrative;)

Posted by: Tom Young, Jul 28, 2008 11:35:24 AM

Capital Commentary: McCain and the Internet: Why It Matters

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