Thanks to Matt Rezac (from the Blandin Foundation) for sending me a fun article on Broadband in Rural? The Campaigns Talk in the Daily Yonder.

I’ve read a few articles lately on the vast differences between their candidates and the use of technology. Obama is a user; McCain is not. There’s also been a lot of press on how their use would have an impact on policy. While I don’t think the President needs to be a super user, I do think it would be nice to have a President who has used it enough to understand how it works, its advantages and its disadvantages. (I’m tempted to go on with a big digression, but I won’t.)

Former FCC chief Michael Powell represented McCain when he said that People Connect was a good way to go where “he would hope to provide tax benefits and financial benefits to companies who would provide those services to low-income users and rural users.” Because “the problem in rural parts of America are that the economics are not nearly as compelling as they are in metropolises like New York or Chicago or Los Angeles, and it may require some government assistance, either through financial subsidy policy or other kinds of creative tools like community or municipal broadband services that help bring those people into the cosmos of technology and connects them to the wonderful benefits that the Net provides.”

Former Federal Communication chief Bill Kennard spoke for Obama when he said, Obama embraces the universal service fund because “this is fundamentally about economic development. It’s about making sure that people in rural areas can participate in the Information Age.”