A Closer Look At The Votes
     Groups considered part of the Democratic base rejected the DLC's emphasis on the wired worker. They argued instead that Bush and Gore tied, and the populist Democratic base represented the real strength of the party last November. Still others, like National Journal political columnist Charlie Cook, said neither analysis is totally correct because each fails to factor in the drag of Clinton's personal scandals on the Democrat ticket.
     There are likely elements of truth in all of those observations. But to determine how close to accurate the DLC's analysis was depends on the definition of "wired worker."
     On the surface, it appears that Gore actually won the states traditionally at the center of the computer-driven economy, including California, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, New Jersey and Maryland. He lost in the "wired" states of Texas, New Hampshire and Virginia, but the really important swing states of Tennessee and Florida, are not known as being at the forefront of technology. They were ranked by the DLC as 31st and 20th respectively in terms of being wired.
     Gore, in fact, won eight of the DLC's top 10 most wired states, according to Rob Atkinson, director of the Technology and New Economy Project for the DLC's think tank, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI).
     "I'm not sure how you conclude that Gore lost the wired worker when he won most of the wired states," said one Democratic policy analyst, who considers himself a wired worker, but did not want to be named. "And if he won the wired workers in Texas and Virginia, would it have made a difference in the end?"

The Meaning Of The Word 'Wired'
     When asked for his definition of the swing wired worker, Penn points to his study. According to the study, the wired worker is typically male, upwardly mobile and socially tolerant. They live in the suburbs and use computers in their offices. The category includes about 25 percent of workers. PPI's Atkinson further described wired workers as "knowledge workers who work with computers and are in self-directed occupations or teams. "
     The definition is similar to one formed by the Institute for the New California. In 1998, the institute defined wired workers by "how often they used computers on the jobs ... the extent to which they work with others to decide the best way to solve problems, and the extent to which they prefer to work in unstructured environments as part of a team."
     The Pew Internet and American Life Project describes wired workers as a subset of a new demographic called the "new-prosperity independents" who believe in smaller government, lower taxes and less regulation. They typically are moderate on social issues such as abortion. According to Pew, Clinton won the new-prosperity independents in 1996 by 3 percent, but they chose Bush over Gore by a 2-1 ratio in 2000 based on the results of a Nov. 9-26, 2000, poll conducted on 2,518 voters.
     Using the Pew data, Business Week concluded in a Dec. 14 story that Gore lost the wired-worker vote. The story was used as a resource both by Penn and PPI President Will Marshall when asked by National Journal's Technology Daily to elaborate on their conclusions about Gore and the wired vote.
     However, Michael Dimock, survey director at Pew, cautioned that the data showed most of those who said they used the Internet had incomes of $50,000 or more and some college education, and were more likely to lean Republican anyway. "Our data does suggest that Bush won the online voter, but the substantive question is why that is and whether it had anything to do with being online," said Dimock.

'The Digital Citizen' Revisited
     Wired magazine offered perhaps the most specific definition of a wired worker in December 1997, when it published the first-ever poll identifying what seemed to be the emerging demographic of "the digital citizen."
     The poll of 1,444 randomly selected individuals, conducted by Luntz Research, categorized participants as: the "super connected" who use e-mail at least three days a week and use a laptop, a cell phone, a beeper and a home computer; the "connected" who also use e-mail at least three days a week but only used three rather than all four of the four technologies used by the super connected; the semi-connected who used at least one but not all four of the technologies; and the unconnected who used none of the technologies.
     The super connected and connected comprised 9 percent of the survey, according to Wired's poll, and they classified themselves as largely optimistic about the future, socially tolerant, civic-minded and strongly believers in democracy. In May 2000, Wired revisited the definition of the "digital citizen" and found that an astounding 77 percent said they used at least one or two of the technologies used by the "super connected," while only 23 percent considered themselves unconnected. Clearly, the magazine concluded, technology use had become mainstream.
     Not surprisingly, because the general public is almost evenly split between the parties, those surveyed by Wired in May 2000 also split down the middle when quizzed about party affiliation — 38 percent as mostly Democratic or leaning Democratic and 34 percent as mostly Republican or leaning Republican. The most wired were among the most educated, had a median income of $57,000 and tended to be optimistic about the future.
     "In terms of a wired-worker demographic, I think what you are really talking about are folks that have the point of view ... that their personal economics will get better over time, not worse over time," said Wade Randlett, the former Democrat political director of TechNet who was a key force in organizing Democratic support among high-tech executives in Silicon Valley.

The Analysis Continues
     If Rand's description of the wired worker is most accurate, perhaps the best evidence that Penn may have been right about Gore's loss lies in the poll findings that 60 percent of those who thought the economy was heading in the right direction voted for Gore, down from the 69 percent who thought the same in 1996 and voted for Clinton. Penn said that if Gore had won the extra 9 percent of the "right track" voters Clinton won four years earlier, he might have won the election.
     Then again, Penn's poll was national and Gore actually won the national popular vote, which may mask where Gore's real weaknesses were. To glean more about the wired workers in states like Florida and Tennessee, Penn is considering conducting another poll of voters in those states within the next few weeks.

- by Bara Vaida