How big were tech issues in the furious election campaigning that just finished in New Hampshire? Not very, reports CNET’s Anne Broache. “Voters here are famously not described as tech-savvy,” she writes. “To be precise, they are famously not described as especially concerned with topics like Net neutrality and intellectual property rights that you, our dear readers, are.”
No surprise, but Broache, with help from Declan McCullough, did some real footwork to back up that disinterest, conducting a few man-in-the-street interviews with Hampshireans.
” We weren’t disappointed”, she says. “Nor, we’re happy to report, did we get punched in the face for bothering those gritty, flinty, and hardy residents with questions about Net neutrality. What we did learn is that Granite State voters are not exactly preoccupied with political skirmishes over rewriting patent law, increasing H-1B visas, and, of course, the throughly pressing concern of broadband regulation”.
“That means nothing to me,” said one voter, when asked about his views on net neutrality.
Technology,” shrugged Granite Stater, who who Broache says “admitted to obtaining an e-mail address only a year ago”. “It’s something I don’t think much about.”
The lesson here isn’t that all us tech policy wonks are so much cooler and smarter than the Luddites in New England. (In fact, I’m not sure I wouldn’t prefer to be a Luddite in New England.) Rather, the point is that while these issues are important, we tend to forget how terribly obscure and irrelevant this all seems to the average guy. It’s a constant challenge for policy advocates, on every side of these issues.
And I can’t help thinking, with his priorities so well in line, maybe that guy in New Hampshire wouldn’t make such a bad FCC chairman.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.