Party politics goes high-tech in the battle for new, younger votes
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The governing Labour Party is at it, as are the opposition Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. Political blogging, podcasting and online video is taking off in Britain as politicians look to widen the net for new -- and importantly younger -- voters.
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Los Angeles Times - They lost at politics at an early age. Since then, they've rarely made the same campaign mistakes twice.
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Americans of ages 18 to 30 hold political views that differ from the general population in some ways that are not at all surprising, and some that are, according to the latest survey by the nonprofit group Young Voter Strategies.
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Too inexperienced or too old - candidates face dilemmas as they battle to capture centre ground
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They love using their iPods, laptops and cell phones for political information, yet many young adults say they aren't quite sure how to get a ballot in the first place.
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Technology policy hasn&#39;t played a major role in this year&#39;s U.S. presidential campaign, but the major candidates have staked out positions on issues such as&#160;net neutrality&#160;and&#160;skilled-worker visas.As in past presidential campaigns, candidates haven&#39;t viewed technology issues as ones that drive voters to the polls.Instead, debate over the war in Iraq, the economy, illegal immigration, and other issues will inspire voters in 24 states (plus American Samoa and Democrats living overseas) on&#160;Super Tuesday&#160;to choose which candidates they want to be nominees of the Democratic or Republican parties.Some tech groups have long complained that many politicians don&#39;t get technology. In late January, the Washington, D.C., tech PR firm 463 Communications released a poll with two-thirds of respondents saying that presidential candidates should have at least as much knowledge about the Internet as they do. However, only 45 percent said the next president will know as much about the Internet as they do.In December, Garrett M. Graff, an editor at large at Washingtonian magazine and the first blogger admitted to a White House briefing, wrote a column in The Washington Post, complaining about the lack of tech-savvy candidates. That prompted others to comment as well.Members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, the panel that debates many tech issues, often talk about their lack of tech experience, Adam Thierer, a senior follow with the tech-centric conservative think tank, the Progress and Freedom Foundation, wrote on the PFF&#39;s blog.&quot;Without missing a beat, they make jokes about not ever using the Internet or computers but that they have staffers or young family members who do and keep them informed,&quot; he wrote. &quot;And yet, despite this stunning unfamiliarity with all things high-tech, they then move right on to pass reams of regulations governing the Internet and digital economy. Again, it&#39;s not funny anymore and we should stop allowing them to pretend it is.&quot;That said, several presidential candidates have taken positions on tech-related issues this year. In alphabetical order, these are some of their views:Senator Hillary ClintonNew York Democrat Clinton, like other candidates, hasn&#39;t made tech issues a central part of her campaign, but she has championed an &quot; innovation agenda&quot; as one of her top issues. That agenda includes several policies that many large tech companies have embraced.Clinton wants to pump up the basic research budgets at the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy&#39;s Office of Science, and the Department of Defense by 50 percent over 10 years.She also would require that federal research agencies set aside at least 8 percent of their research budgets for discretionary funding of high-risk research, and she would increase funding for research on Internet- and IT-based tools, including supercomputing and simulation software.&quot;Under the Bush administration, agencies like the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have reduced support for truly revolutionary research,&quot; Clinton&#39;s Web site says. &quot;This is a problem because DARPA has played a major role in maintaining America&#39;s economic and military leadership. DARPA backed such projects as the Internet, stealth technology, and the Global Positioning System.&quot;Clinton also wants tax incentives to encourage broadband providers to deploy services in underserved areas. She has called for federal support of state and local broadband programs, including municipal broadband projects. Clinton has also called for a research-and-development tax credit, extended temporarily multiple times since 1981, to be made permanent.Clinton has said she would support net neutrality regulations for U.S. broadband providers.Former Governor Mike HuckabeeHuckabee, an Arkansas Republican and ordained Baptist minister, has largely ignored tech issues during his campaign.He has, however, called for an increase in immigrant visas for highly skilled and highly educated workers, a position shared by many large tech companies. Otherwise, Huckabee would largely shut down U.S. borders to immigrants.Instead of technology, Huckabee has focused on social issues such as making abortion illegal and defining marriage as only between a man and a woman.Huckabee also wants the U.S. to achieve independence from oil-producing nations.Senator John McCainThe Arizona Republican is a long-time member of the Senate Commerce Committee. As such, he can argue that he has the most tech policy experience of any of the remaining major-party candidates.In recent years, McCain has pushed for a nationwide voice and data network for public safety agencies. He was one of the Senate&#39;s leading voices in the effort to get U.S. television stations to give up part of their analog spectrum for use by police and fire departments. The rest of that spectrum is being sold in the Federal Communications Commission&#39;s auctions now under way.McCain has been noncommittal about net neutrality laws. He&#39;s said he&#39;d be concerned if Internet users&#39; access is blocked, but he&#39;s also suggested broadband carriers need to recoup their investments.McCain last year also called for an increase in government research and development spending, and he&#39;s said he&#39;d draft &quot;the best and the brightest&quot; of American CEOs to work in his administration if he were elected, including Cisco Systems&#39; John Chambers and Microsoft&#39;s Steve Ballmer.He has also supported efforts to make an Internet tax moratorium permanent, recently calling the Internet &quot;likely the most popular invention since the light bulb.&quot; In 2004, he urged the Federal Trade Commission to focus more of its efforts on fighting spam.In 2005, McCain split from many other Republicans by authoring legislation that would prohibit states from outlawing municipal broadband projects. McCain said then he was concerned that the U.S. has fallen behind more than a dozen other countries on broadband adoption.Senator Barack ObamaThe Illinois Democrat in November released an extensive tech policy paper, earning him praise from several tech groups.Obama gets technology, said Julius Genachowski, co-founder of Rock Creek Ventures and a long-time friend. &quot;He will be a true 21st century president, using technology to improve the lives of all Americans,&quot; Genachowski said at a tech forum last week.In the tech agenda, Obama called for net neutrality regulations for broadband carriers. &quot;Users must be free to access content, to use applications, and to attach personal devices,&quot; he said in his tech policy.Parents need better tools and information to control what their children see on the Internet and television, he said.He called for greater privacy protections for all U.S. residents, including Internet users, and he said government and businesses should be held accountable for privacy violations. He wants an update of government surveillance laws that allow intelligence-gathering on U.S. citizens to be done &quot;only under the rule of law.&quot;Obama would also increase the Federal Trade Commission&#39;s enforcement budget and focus increased international cooperation to track down cybercriminals.Obama also wants to make government data more available online. He would revamp a number of existing programs, and create some new ones, to help roll out broadband in the U.S. He called for a review of wireless spectrum use in the U.S. and said he would &quot;confront the entrenched Washington interests that have kept our public airwaves from being maximized for the public&#39;s interest.&quot;He has pledged to make the research-and-development tax credit permanent. He also called for patent reform, primarily by giving the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office more resources to improve patent quality.Former Governor Mitt RomneyRomney, a Massachusetts Republican, hasn&#39;t made many tech issues a central part of his campaign, but he has focused on U.S. competitiveness, a popular issue for many IT companies.Romney&#39;s competitiveness initiative would seek to improve U.S. schools and at the same time cut individual and corporate tax rates. He wants to improve worker retraining programs by consolidating and streamlining numerous federal programs.He has taken positions on a couple of other tech-related issues as well. In interviews Romney has expressed support for a permanent Internet tax ban, and he&#39;s said he supports free trade, a position echoed by many large tech vendors.Romney has also said he would support an increase in H-1B visas for high-skilled workers.&quot;I like the idea of the best and brightest in the world coming here,&quot; he told the TechCrunch blog in November. &quot;I&#39;d rather have them come here permanently rather than come and go, but I believe our visa program is designed to help us solve gaps in our employment pool. Where there are individuals who have skills that we do not have in abundance here, I&#39;d like to bring them here and contribute to our economy.&quot;
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New Labour is no longer the party of shiny, happy people, and it is no longer fashionable. This may be no bad thing: the party will learn patience and gain intellectual strength.
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As Howard Deanâs campaign proved four years ago, it takes more than a core group of dedicated, Web-savvy supporters to win votes.
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Nic Cochran is 16 years old, but he has already learned one of the basic truths of politics. Beyond the countless stump speeches and spin, elections are won or lost on Election Day.
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Ah, youth, that fickle force in politics. Young people bring energy, passion, creativity and technical wizardry to the presidential campaign &#151; everything, it seems, except impact on Election Day.
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Voter registration drives aimed at young people are turning 18- to 24-year-olds into an important variable in the presidential election, especially in decisive battleground states such as Michigan &#151; where nearly 100,000 young people have registered in recent months &#151; and Wisconsin, where the numbers are even higher.
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The Democratsâ growing dominance in securing contributions online is reshaping the 2008 elections.
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Fairfax County is putting its technology prowess to work for its new immigrants on Election Day.
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New voters are signing up in record  numbers across the United States as state deadlines to register  to vote expire this week, but it is unclear which party will  benefit from the influx.
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Blogs and other Web 2.0 technologies are having a profound impact on this year's presidential campaign, and candidates are using the new media in different ways to boost their campaigns.
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Surveys show that interest in the election among the young is near the highest level it has reached at any time since 18- to 20-year-olds were given the vote in 1972.
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WARSAW (International Herald Tribune) - The text message spread with viral speed among the cellphones of Polish teens. With national parliamentary elections coming up Sunday, kids had a clear mission: "Steal your grandmother's ID," the text jokingly implored. The message referred to the conventional wisdom here that conservative older women put the ruling Law and Justice Party and the Kaczynski brothers - the notorious twins with the round faces of aging cherubs who are prime minister and president - into office. Without their identity cards, the grandmothers would not be able to vote. If granny does not vote, the government could be driven from office.  Teenagers guffawed. The Kaczynskis fumed. Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said that those who repeated the message "act against you and also against the Polish nation." The small Polish Peasants Party quickly ran its own advertisement in which a grandmother catches her grandson in the act of snatching her identity card. She tells there's no need for him to steal it, because she plans to vote for the Peasants Party and not Law and Justice. In the previous 2005 election, Law and Justice benefited from low voter turnout, needing only 3.2 million votes in a country of 38 million to take control of government in a coalition with several smaller parties. The most recent coalition fell apart over a contentious scandal-filled summer, leading to early elections this weekend.  Opponents are counting on a strong turnout by younger voters this time around. The latest opinion polls show Civic Platform, a free-market, pro-European rival party, poised to win the election Sunday. But polls here have proved highly unreliable, skewed by the country's historically lethargic turnout, which was a little over 40 percent in the elections two years ago.