The First Campaign

From whiste stops to the broadband express

Presidential candidates’ use of digital media in the 2004 campaign was merely the jumping-off point for an overview of the ongoing technological revolution detailed in Garrett Graff’s The First Campaign. Graff calls for the next presidential administration to invest in technology and education to strengthen its workforce and ensure a solid broadband infrastructure. Political leaders will have to act swiftly to boost the economy and the country’s competitive advantage in the global realm.

The 21st century broadband movement is a throw-back to the 18th and 19th centuries, when the industrial revolution, which began in Great Britain, led to the industrialization of the rest of the world. The demand for a more skilled workforce and federal investment in education is just as critical today as it was then.

And then there’s globalization — not to be confused with outsourcing, which isn’t a bad thing, right? If they can produce it China, why not build a plant here in American and manufacture the product here too. Of course, it’s much more complicated than that. Although there’s evidence to support the theory that outsourcing jobs has mega-potential for boosting the economic bottom line, as minimum-wage jobs continue to leave the country, Americans who are facing foreclosure and high gas prices flock to state unemployment lines screaming “What’s in it for me?”

What else stood out for me?

• Former Virginia Governor Mark Warner’s 2005 broadband proposal for boosting economically depressed Southwest and SouthsideVirginia communities by the laying of broadband cable.
• Columbus, Neb., global businessman Tony Raimondo’s investment in exporting and joint venture in Beijing, manufacturing steel, which led to his near appointment by the Bush Administration as their manufacturing czar, blocked by Democrats. I googled Raimondo and found out that he ran for the Nebraska Senate seat in 2008 in the primaries. His campaign site is “no longer available,” so I guess that means he won’t be on the ballot come November.
• Globalization, get with the program.
  “In their own way, the attacks of 9/11 were a warning of the effects of globalization, but one in which the United States didn’t necessarily learn all the lessons it should have,” said Graff. “In other words, a century ago, all of the firepower of the most powerful military force yet assembled in history would have struggled over several hours to do the amount of damage to America’s largest city today inflicted by a score of minimally trained individuals funded by a shadowy man in a cave half a world away in a country most American’s couldn’t locate on a map.”