It Makes a Difference to the Sheep

Watched a re-run of the Mondale-Coleman debate late last night on C-SPAN. Didn't think either side won by a knock-out, but if one peruses blogs of varying political persuasions one finds partisans who are certain that their man cleaned his opponent's clock. Motivational bias is thick around election day. I did find the debate a chance to ponder again how is it that the Democrats, robbed of their Senator by a unforeseen tragedy, had no one better than Fritz Mondale to bring up to the plate as a pinch hitter. Lileks hits the nail on the head when commenting on the differing responses to a question about technology:

Mr. Mondale, this is for you. This is from Peggy. ``As a businesswoman in southern Minnesota, I'm concerned about technology reaching our businesses and our homes. What is your vision for keeping all of Minnesota on the cutting edge of technology?''

Mondale’s response:

Growing economy, leadership that builds trust. I think right now there should be a reduction in the interest rates.

I’m not kidding. Pitched a question about getting broadband to rural areas, that’s what he says. One word was noticeably absent in Mondale’s reply: INTERNET. Or, for that matter, Fiber, or broadband, or any other aspect of that amusing diversion we call the Web. High-speed internet access in the rural portions of the state is an issue here, because many small towns are served by independent phone companies that can’t afford the upgrades. Or the local phone exchanges have been purchased by out-of-state companies that don’t want to spend the money to run fiber to the barn. It’s a real issue - our paper did a story on it a while back, how the lack of high-speed access crimps the ability of outstate companies to compete.

He continued:

I think that we need to support education that produces economic growth. This is maybe where we disagree. We made a promise that in addition to putting a burden on the schools with new testing that we would provide economic assistance for these schools, elementary and secondary and high school, that would allow them to educate these kids for the future. That has not been done, nor have we brought new help to students.

We need to do that. We have several wonderful educational institutions in our state university system and in the community college systems, and in other systems, that help young people to get ready for this technology and get ready for the future. That's our future, and that's where, I think, our support must be.

Translation: the secretary prints off his Emil for him.

Here’s Coleman:

What we have to do is have to make a firm commitment to make sure that all of Minnesota is wired, and going beyond wired now, now we're talking about wireless. I had an opportunity to visit with the folks over at Minnesota Wireless in Mankato. Wonderful cutting-edge operation, a tentative conference on technology about six months ago, in that same area.

It is our future. We should be wiring the schools and let the businesses draw off a that so they can afford to create the public-private partnership that expands the use of technology. We should be looking at opportunities to expand wireless.

I'm a former mayor. I understand about infrastructure. Part of infrastructure is roads and highways, (inaudible) but another part of infrastructure is the wireless infrastructure. It's linking all of Minnesota through technology. I will be a champion of 21st Century thinking when it comes to making sure that all of Minnesota is wired.

To me, this was the most important moment of the debate - not because it concerned a particular issue, but because it showed who inhabits the current century. Fritz just didn’t get it - which means he’s likely to have a nice steak dinner with The Other White Meat, Fritz Hollings, and sign on to some Disney-paid bill to install copyright protection at the hardware level. Then all the suburban yups who voted for Fritz because, well, you know, Paul and all that, will find himself putting a CD in his computer to rip tunes for personal use - and the disk will be spat out. Or he’ll pop in a DVD he got from a friend, and have to get a new DVD driver with security certificates that establish him as the True Legitimate Owner of the disc - enter your access code now, please, and wait while we access the Warner Brothers / Suncoast database to ensure you are the rightful owner. And the guy will sit there and think: hey, how did this happen?

I’m not saying Coleman is a bulwark against this scenario - only that Mondale obviously hasn’t a clue. When it comes to the computer, to the Internet, he’s truly Grandpa, the guy who thinks he broke the machine when he accidentally minimized a window.

And this is the guy who will vote on digital issues.

And I like his conclusion as well: If all these things matter so much to you, Mr. Mondale, where have you been?