Editor’s Note: Following the Republican National Convention, RCR Wireless News Bureau Chief Jeffrey Silva looked at the McCain camp’s tech and telecom initiatives. Last week, he reported on the Obama telecom team.
John McCain’s unpredictably fitting pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) as his vice-presidential running mate reflects the maverick approach the Arizona lawmaker took as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee on telecom and high-tech issues, and suggests that as president he would likely continue to pursue cross-sector policies aimed at limiting government interference, fostering innovation, and promoting economic growth while being doggedly dismissive of powerful special interests that routinely shape debates and their outcomes in official Washington.
Indeed, McCain is not the kind of run-of-the-mill Republican when it comes to telecom-tech issues. He’s not the kind of Johnny-one-note GOP politician limited to evangelizing deregulation in robotic fashion. Sure, McCain tightly embraces market forces and prefers that government regulators remain on the sidelines unless circumstances demand their presence. But he’s much more. McCain has a track record of being an activist, whether it is backing legislation to free up spectrum – including that held by broadcasters and federal agencies – for mobile-phone, public-safety and other wireless services, or joining a Democrat colleague to champion pro-municipal broadband or curbing state and local taxes on wireless services.
McCain impact
What might a McCain White House mean for wireless and other telecom sectors?
In a research note in June, Morgan Stanley analysts observed that the telecom sector “has done much better under Republican presidents with a 10.3% average annual return versus 4.2% under Democratic presidents.” At the same time, they said the overall market has performed better on average under Democratic administrations.
McCain’s vote against the 1996 telecom act prompted criticism that he was a shill for Bell telephone giants and other communications conglomerates, but his legislative irreverence has tended to disappoint the high and mighty in the telecom, high-tech and media sectors at times. That is the essence of McCain: the uncanny ability to confound. He relishes the opportunity to boldly confront and disrupt the status quo. It’s deeply embedded in his DNA.
As such, while he shares traditional, guiding-light philosophies favoring deregulation and markets over government intervention, McCain nonetheless would keep Wall Street and digerati everywhere guessing.
Old friends
Michael Powell, who heads a team that’s working on telecom and tech issues for the McCain campaign, pursued a highly ambitious spectrum agenda as former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. The wireless industry – today led by AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA Inc. – was not always enamored by Powell’s enthusiastic daring when it came to crafting wireless and spectrum policies that sometimes pushed the edge of the envelope.
“John McCain has been front and center in the wireless revolution that has brought such remarkable value to American consumers,” said Bryan Tramont, a communications attorney and former chief of staff to Powell. “A McCain administration’s innovation agenda would build on these lessons to ensure that the wireless industry continues to serve as a growth engine for our economy and a technological enabler for the health care, environmental, energy, homeland security and education sectors. In a McCain administration, consumers will continue to benefit from the investment, innovation and competition that have fueled the meteoric rise of mobile services.”
Michael Gallagher, president of the Entertainment Software Association and a former head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration who played a key role in lining up spectrum for 3G, 5 GHz Wi-Fi and ultra-wideband services, predicts McCain would be committed to creating an environment that stimulates economic growth and nurtures technological innovation far beyond the reach of the high-tech sector itself.
“The McCain campaign approaches this from a perspective of baking this [technology] into the entire economy,” said Gallagher.
“Getting this issue right is very important for the entire country for the next four to eight years,” said John Kneuer, another former NTIA chief and a VP for strategic planning and external affairs at Rivada Networks.
Tramont, Gallagher and Kneuer are among those lending their high-tech expertise to the McCain team on a voluntary basis. If he wins the White House, McCain would instantly have access to an army of high-tech experts from the Republicans ranks that served as former McCain staffers or policymakers who had to face his stern glare at Senate Commerce Committee hearings over the past decade.
Help from high tech
Individuals assisting the McCain campaign on telecom and high-tech issues fit loosely into an organizational structure that appears far more decentralized than the high-tech group working for Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
Kneuer points out that tech titans like former Hewlett Packard Co. and eBay Inc. executives Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, respectively, and Cisco Systems Inc. CEO John Chambers serve as high-level advisers to McCain. His point: McCain gets it; high-tech policy will get its due and more if McCain comes to occupy the White House.
All told, a McCain presidency could be counted on to be far more involved in high-tech issues than the current Bush administration.
As for the presidential race, the future policy treatment of the Internet – as an immediate policy matter and on a broader symbolic level – represents the bright line differentiating McCain and Obama on high tech.
The Arizona lawmaker lays out his position in straight-talk manner on his campaign’s Web site.
“John McCain does not believe in prescriptive regulation like ‘net-neutrality,’ but rather he believes that an open marketplace with a variety of consumer choices is the best deterrent against unfair practices,” the Web site states. “John McCain has always believed the government’s role must be rooted in protecting consumers. He championed laws that penalized fraudulent marketing practices, protected kids from harmful Internet content, secured consumer privacy, and sought to minimize spam. When businesses struggled to assess the legal role of electronic signatures, John McCain led legislative efforts to ensure that these Innovation Age signatures were legally sufficient so that e-commerce could thrive. His record reflects the careful balance between protecting the essential elements of the Internet and securing the Internet as a safe tool of commerce, education and entertainment for our citizens. Offering simple common sense solutions to real problems is at the core of the McCain’s innovation agenda.”
However, if McCain upends Obama, who supports net neutrality, he could be forced to abandon his maverick mannerisms to have any chance of getting his innovation agenda through a Congress likely to remain firmly in Democratic hands after the November elections.
