John Mccain

The red elephant soft touch robo-caller of Ohio

Doug Mohney — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 21:25:46 -0400

Created in Cleveland, Victory VOIP is currently making automated phone calls for Republican presidential John McCain and dozens of other campaigns in 16 states.

The automated phone system combines automatic dialing, automated bookkeeping, and a message-drop feature for a volunteer to deliver a personalized message that can be left on an answering machine if nobody picks up the phone.

Volunteers don't have to deal with paper and pencil to keep track of who they have called and who they need to call; a VoIP system handles it all automatically. In case of an answer machine pickup, the system leaves the pre-recorded message while dialing up another line. If a real person does pick up, the volunteer can go through his/her pitch.

According to CEO Shannon Burns, using the hybrid automated system "nearly triples" the call output of a traditional volunteer phone bank. The technology is being used for House Minority Leader John Boehner's re-election campaign and was applied in several campaigns across Ohio.

VoIP is being increasingly incorporated into elections and political lobbying. Google tapped into Cause Caller to lobby on behalf of Google's White Spaces push. On the blue donkey side of the aisle, David Troy's Popvox has been working with various Democratic political causes since 2005. During the 2006 election cycle, Popvox logged over a million voter-to-voter phone calls for 25 Democratic campaigns

For more:
- Akron Beacon Journal/ohio.com covers Red Elephant Robo Calling. Article

SPOTLIGHT: McCain gets (an ex-) FCC Chairman

Doug Mohney — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:57:14 -0400

Senator John McCain had trailed Senator Barack Obama in the number of former Federal Communication Commission (FCC) chairs supporting his campaign by a count of two to zero. This week, his re-energized campaign has managed to garner the support of former FCC Chairman and professed Best Buy lover Michael K. Powell.

Powell represented McCain on Monday in an online discussion conducted over Skype entitled "The Next President, the Internet, and the Disconnected City"; he faced off against Obama surrogate Gigi Sohn, President of Public Knowledge. Powell, son of General and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, likely gets extra brownie points in McCain circles for his Army service.

After departing the FCC, Powell has kept a low public profile. During his time as chairman, Powell outlined principles for what has become known as Net Neutrality and was a geek favorite for his love of TiVo, VoIP and whatever other cool gizmos he found.

However, McCain has an uphill battle in the telecommunications adviser count. Obama counts a (very embittered) Bill Kinnard and Reed Hundt among his former FCC chair head count; both have contributed cash and advice to the Democratic candidate's campaign.

McCain Issues Tech Policy

Doug Mohney — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 17:24:41 -0400

While the world focuses on the Olympics and Georgia, Republican Presidential candidate John McCain issued a 3,000 word technology policy statement with a right turn on net neutrality.

McCain describes network neutrality as "prescriptive regulation" and instead believes an open marketplace with a variety of consumer choices is the "best deterrent" against unfair practices. McCain says that his administration would focus on open networks that would allow consumers to attach devices and use services of their choice, so long as the twain do no harm to the network. (So the difference between net neutrality and open networks is...?)

McCain is promoting his "People Connect Program," which would give tax write-offs to companies that offer broadband Internet access services to low-income customers. McCain's policy also is heavy on tax credits and more H1B skilled worker visas.

Way back in October 2007, Democratic candidate Barack Obama pledged to impose network neutrality mandates on broadband providers if he made it into the White House. He also said he would appoint a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman who supported network neutrality, as well as a CTO for his administration.

More recently, McCain came under fire by former FCC Chairman Bill Kennard for not having a telecom policy.

For more
- eWeek dissects McCain's technology policy

Related articles
Obama vs. McCain: Who is telecom's favorite?
Ex-FCC Chairman: McCain has no Telecom Policy