About a month ago, John McCain was raising money in Richmond, Va., when he brought up his search for a running mate. “We’re going through a process where you get a whole bunch of names, and ya — well, basically, it’s a Google,” McCain said. “You just, you know, what you can find out now on the Internet. It’s remarkable, you know.”
Not long beforehand, McCain was asked, “Mac or PC?” McCain responded, “Neither. I am a [sic] illiterate who has to rely on my wife.”
Given these responses, McCain’s discomfort with modern technology has made him the butt of jokes, and it appears the senator is trying to reshape his Luddite-ish image.
He said, ruefully, that 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 said. “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.”
Asked which blogs he read, he said: “Brooke and Mark show me Drudge, obviously. Everybody watches, for better or for worse, Drudge. Sometimes I look at Politico. Sometimes RealPolitics.”
McCain added, “I don’t e-mail, I’ve never felt the particular need to e-mail.”
I suspect, by memorizing the names of a handful of conservative blogs, and arguing that he’s “learning to get online myself,” McCain was trying to improve his image on the issue. But I have a hunch he’s done the opposite.
McCain said, for example, that he relies on others to “get him online.” I’m not entirely sure what that means. It sounds as if McCain needs help opening a web browser.
Indeed, he added, “I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon.” McCain, in other words, nearly has the “double-click phenomenon” down. If someone could put a browser in his quick-launch tray, McCain could even go with one click.
I realize there’s a digital divide, often based on age. For that matter, I can appreciate that the Internet might be slightly intimidating to a man who’s nearly 72, has no background in technology, doesn’t use email, and by his own admission, is “illiterate” enough not to know what Google is.
And if this were the whole story, it would probably only be a mild embarrassment for the Republican presidential candidate. But let’s not forget that McCain not only doesn’t understand the basics of modern technology, he also doesn’t actually have a policy in this area at all.
Political observers have made much of John McCain’s admission that he cannot use a computer without assistance. In a campaign where McCain’s opponent is 25 years younger than him, the factoid is potent ammunition for those who argue McCain is out of touch and too old for the presidency. But not knowing your way around a MacBook doesn’t mean you can’t be president. And McCain’s personal Ludditism isn’t a deal breaker for tech leaders. “I don’t give a damn if McCain ever turns on a computer or not,” Michael Arrington, coeditor of the blog TechCrunch wrote in January. “I just want a president who has the right top-down polices to support the information economy.”
And where is McCain on tech policy? Not so shockingly, the computer-free senator’s campaign is not as plugged in as his rival’s. In fact, his campaign website fails to address America’s lagging performance on broadband access or affordability, the technological capabilities of the federal bureaucracy, or the Internet’s ability to increase government transparency. “There are red flags,” says Brian Reich, author of the book Media Rules!: Mastering Today’s Technology to Connect With and Keep Your Audience and the former editor of Campaign Web Review, a blog that tracked the use of the Internet by candidates, campaigns, and activists.
So, one the one hand, we have Barack Obama who’s unveiled an exceptional “innovation agenda,” shaped in large part by technology visionary Lawrence Lessig. And on the other we have John McCain.
This isn’t just about physical age; it’s about a candidate who seems more comfortable in the past, and lacks a vision for the future.