"No One In Tech Can Defend McCain" (McLoser campaign reneges on scheduled debate)

[MH1]

Looks like McCain doesn't have much confidence in his technology platform, or else doesn't think it's important.

http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/10/now-official-no....

There is apparently not a single prominent person who supports John McCain’s technology policies and is confident enough to go out there and debate in favor of them.

As readers of this blog know, after publishing the Wired Scorecard a couple weeks ago, I’ve been wrangling with the McCain campaign, trying to get someone to defend his tech record and platform in a debate. There are enough Obama surrogates to fill the Queen Mary and the first one I called, former FCC chair Reed Hundt, was eager and willing to find a time.

...

Finally, the McCain camp offered economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin. Excellent! We started planning and everything went well. Technology has been the ignored step-child of this campaign. No issue that matters more has been discussed less. The event sold out immediately.

Then, oops, yesterday morning, a couple hours before the event began, the McCain camp emailed to say that, actually, no, sorry, Holtz-Eakin can't make it for the 12:30 debate. Apparently he had very important meetings to attend. Right. Apparently, though, he stepped out in the middle. At 1pm he was on MSNBC attacking Obama, trying to tie him to George Bush's economic policies. Meanwhile, Reed Hundt ended up talking about complicated tech issues alone. The event was still fascinating (and you can see video here) but a huge opportunity was lost.

In short: the McCain camp chickened out. Spinning is easy; debating is hard. And defending John McCain’s record on broadband deployment, spectrum issues, and net neutrality is particularly hard. “If I was voting on technology issues only, even I wouldn’t support McCain,” said one Republican who I interviewed while researching the scorecard.

The freakin' debate was already scheduled and sold out, and McCain pulled out so his guy could do an MSNBC interview?!? Does this remind anyone of the Letterman incident? But of course, if a tree falls in geekworld and doesn't land on an M$M mouthpiece, you won't be hearing much about it now will you?

[crossroads]

1. Wow! Another Letterman moment? k&r

[MH1]

4. Yeah but this one won't make the news I guess.

[Hokie]

2. What a pathetic campaign McCain is running

[ticapnews]

3. That's a shame

Holtz-Eakin could have dazzled the audience with the story of how McCain invented the Black Berry.

[MH1]

5. Actually I was looking forward to see what they had to say.

I expected Obama's guy to wipe the floor with McCain's guy, but it would be interesting to at least hear the arguments.

Unfortunately it seems that McCain will get away with blowing this off.

[MH1]

6. Kick for the morning crowd.

Maybe McCain actually made a good call on this. Apparently no one's interested.

(it couldn't be my crappy posting style, could it?)

[Shanti Mama]

7. I'm interested. Very much so. Thanks for posting this.

[MH1]

9. Thanks

it does seem to be getting more interest this morning.

[Doremus]

8. K&R

[central scrutinizer]

10. But McW invented the Blackberry - how's that for tech cred?

[Laelth]

11. "Spinning is easy; debating is hard."

That's very insightful. Nobody wants to defend either Bush's record or McCain's record on these issues. Generally speaking, their records are indefensible. They'd rather just spew lies about Obama.

Glad that a large number of people are starting to realize what the Republic party is all about.

The United States is a LIBERAL Country.



-Laelth