US President: Who would be better for tech, McCain or Obama?

In terms of rating the candidates on my top five issues, I would give John McCain the nod for being the stronger candidate in R&D tax cuts and H1B Visas, while I think Barack Obama would be better when it comes to Net Neutrality and Green tech. That leaves Broadband development as the tie breaker.

Obama has a broader vision for broadband by thinking of it as the next standard utility, like electricity and the telephone, but McCain has a track record of smaller legislative victories that have helped drive progress. Ultimately, I think this issue hinges on which candidate will better foster an atmosphere of true competition in the broadband business, and neither of these two inspire a lot of confidence there.

McCain thinks the free market alone will solve most of the problems and Obama relies too heavily on government regulation and intervention, when what’s needed is just-enough government regulation to ensure free market competition.

However, since McCain has presided over massive consolidation in the broadband market, and Obama is more likely to bring back and enforce the Clinton-era 1996 Telecommunications Act, which forced the telecoms to open up their lines to smaller resellers, Obama wins this one by a nose and that also gives him the overall nod as the candidate that could potentially have a stronger impact on the technology industry.

There are also a few other secondary factors that help tilt this in Obama’s direction:
- If elected he plans to appoint the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
- His first sponsored bill that became law was “Google for Government,” which shows his interest in technology
- In a recent interview Obama said he’d like to take what he and his team have learned about using technology in the campaign and apply it to government. He was primarily referring to electronic communications.
- The fact that he’s talked about making electronic medical records a key part of his health care plan (as a way to drive efficiency) shows that he generally views technology as a powerful enabler

This is not an official TechRepublic endorsement of Senator Obama. I would not expect anyone — even techies — to base their vote on the next U.S. leader solely on these issues. However, for those of us who make a living in the technology space and have so much invested in its future development, we should all be well-informed about where the candidates stand on the legislative, regulatory, and investment issues that will dramatically affect the technology industry in the critical years ahead.

NOTE: Source taken from ZDNet.