November 3, 2008
Welcome to the US Election special where we’ll be reviewing some of the stories that pop up on Google when you enter the words “election” and “spam” in to the search window. With the election on November 4th just hours away, palms are sweatier than a mouse who has inadvertently turned up at the 2008 Cat World Boxing Championships. Let’s get cracking.
The two-day election
Those of you in Orlando (I’ve heard my readership in that city is topping a quarter-mil) better watch out. There’s a fraud about.
The Orlando Sentinel reports on something so absurd that it’s pretty funny. A bogus email is doing the rounds telling the uninitiated that the voting day for Democrats has been changed to November 5th while only votes for Republicans can be cast on Election Day. (Link)
“If you want to vote for a Democratic Party candidate, or a split party ticket, you are to appear at the polls on Wednesday, November 5, 2008. This is to eliminate long lines and delays in voting,” says the email, fooling nobody except Mr and Mrs Gullible, a retired couple from Idiotville, OR.
Reports that Sarah Palin has been working on email-merge applications in the last week are unfounded.
Obama wins the Spam Election
It really is going to be a gripping race on Tuesday. Obama may be strutting his stuff like the African-American Tony Manero, but who knows what’ll happen when people actually put the X in the box.
But if it were the Spam Election then the race is well and truly over. Help Net Security report that in terms of being the topic of spam emails, Barack Obama is the overwhelmingly popular choice by a ratio of 6:1. (Link)
The Illinois senator has continuously maintained at least a 10 point lead over John McCain (aka “The Other Guy”) and the unwieldy named Secure Computing’s TrustedSource Labs estimates the number of worldwide US election-related spam email is roughly 100 million messages per day.
And they have even produced this cute little graph…ahhh.
These theme blogs can be hard to fill. Um… Oh, here’s one.
McCain struggling with technology
Wired Magazine senior editor Nicholas Thompson is not too impressed with John McCain’s grip on technology.
The respected tech journalist previously reported a Scorecard comparing the records and policies of both Presidential candidates on technology issues. In the view of Thompson and his editorial team, John McCain struggled to compete with Barack Obama on this front.
Feeling that tech issues had been largely ignored in the debates and public speeches, Wired organised a debate between both camps – well, they tried to. Reed Hundt, formerly chair of the Federal Communications Commission, agreed to appear on behalf of the Democrats. But as of right now, no suitable person has stood up on the Republican side. (Link)
Although it will hardly make headline news, the McCain camp have been pfaffing around, vetoing one contender and pulling others at the last minute.
Thompson writes:
“Carly Fiorina? Alas, she was vetoed by the campaign, ostensibly because she’s not a policy person; but almost certainly because she made a gaffe earlier in the election cycle.
Former FCC chair Michael Powell? Supposedly travelling until election day - and, according to one friend of his who I spoke with, wavering in his support for McCain
Meg Whitman? According to the McCain people she couldn’t possibly fly east for a debate in Washington. Funny then that she spoke at a conference in Virginia earlier this week.”
So when the Republicans offered economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Wired set up the debate, sold out the tickets and … well, it never happened. Hours before the event was to begin, an email arrived to advise that Holtz-Eakin couldn’t make it as he had important meetings to attend. However at the same time the debate was to run, the adviser was on TV attacking the Democrats.
Thompson reveals that a Republican he interviewed during his research said
“If I was voting on technology issues only, even I wouldn’t support McCain.”
He then sums up what many commentators are saying about the Presidential battle.
John McCain has taken some admirable positions in his career - into some on technology, like H1B Visas. But this very lame back-out is just more evidence that his campaign is more interested in attacks than debates. A campaign like that deserves to lose.
Of course I’m totally independent on the election so will merely say “Go-bama!”
|
