|
|  |
|
Campaigns
Sen. Obama's Fundraising Gets Notice Online And Off
by Heather Greenfield
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton topped the presidential fundraising charts for Democrats and Republicans in the first quarter of 2007, with $19.1 million in contributions and several million dollars more transferred from her Senate campaign fund. But Sen. Barack Obama finished a close second, with nearly $25 million, according to Federal Election Commission reports.
The Democrats' data was officially released over the weekend, but much of it was announced two weeks ago. While New York's Clinton, with $24.1 million designated for spending on her primary campaign, has the biggest war chest thanks to the Senate transfer, Illinois' Obama raised more in the first quarter -- $24.8 million to Clinton's $19.1 million.
The numbers have sparked surprise and praise for Obama online and off. "The best showing was made by Obama, who stunned everyone, especially Hillary Clinton, with the depth of his contributions," wrote former White House adviser Dick Morris wrote.
Stephen Hess, a presidential scholar at the Brookings Institution, said this: "I think the biggest story is Obama. After all you expect Hillary Clinton to raise a lot of money. She has the Rolodex that has been rolling for more than two decades."
Hess described Obama's fundraising as "remarkable on two fronts -- the number of contributions and the Internet part of it." Obama raised money from 100,000 donors to Clinton's 50,000, and claimed $6.9 million was raised online to Clinton's $4.2 million in online donations.
John Edwards, a North Carolinian who was the Democrats' vice-presidential candidate in 2004, raised $14 million, according to his FEC report, including $3 million in online donations.
Days before filing the latest report, Edwards Finance Director Jennifer Swanson left the campaign. She will be replaced by Brian Mixer, once a fundraising director for former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner.
In California, Clinton raised $1.7 million in the technology-oriented San Francisco Bay area, compared with Obama's nearly $1.6 million. Several big tech industry fundraisers are supporting Obama, including former eBay executive Steve Westly and Sandy Robertson, a partner at Francisco Partners, a technology buyout company, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs and venture capitalist and former TechNet CEO John Doerr, Other big Democratic donors, have not donated to any of the frontrunners this cycle.
But Clinton does count senior Google executive Sheryl Sandberg among her fundraisers. In late March, Clinton raised $1 million at two small Silicon Valley fundraisers, one co-hosted by Cisco Systems Senior Vice President Mark Chandler and another co-hosted by Oracle president Charles Phillips. Some of Obama's leading fundraisers worked in the administration of Clinton's husband, Bill Clinton. They include former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, former President Clinton's former ambassador to the United Nations and Energy secretary, reported raising $5 million for the Democratic nomination.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who has garnered praise from liberal blogs for consistently voting against funding for the Iraq war, reported $8 million in contributions. Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut raised $4 million, and Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware raised $2.1 million.
Conservative blogger Robert Bluey of the Heritage Foundation noted that Democrats are raising more money online than Republicans and criticized GOP candidates for not being more forthcoming about their online fundraising figures.
| |
|
Campaigns
Mitt Romney Raises Big Presidential Money In California
by Heather Greenfield
Mitt Romney, currently the top fundraiser among Republican presidential candidates, counts California as his top state for fundraising, with $1.2 million coming from southern California and $781,450 from the San Francisco Bay area.
Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, also is getting help from those who work or worked for the management-consulting firm he once ran, Bain & Company. Those contributors include eBay executives John Donahoe and Meg Whitman.
Whitman became the financial co-chair of Romney's campaign in January. Her contacts are credited with raising $6 million for the campaign in one day, according to the New York Times.
Romney announced fundraising numbers earlier this month, but Federal Election Commission filings for the first quarter of this year were officially due over the weekend. They showed that Romney raised $20.7 million. He finished ahead of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who raised $14.7 million. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, ranked third with $13.6 million.
Both Giuliani and Romney claim about $11.9 million cash on hand. Romney spent $1.8 million running television ads in early primary states, including Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, counts California just behind New York in his fundraising contributions, with $767,000 from southern California and $312,000 from the San Francisco Bay area. He gets Silicon Valley support from venture capitalists Tim Draper and Floyd Kvamme.
McCain had nearly matching fundraising totals as Giuliani in parts of California, with $612,000 raised in southern California and $318,000 raised in the San Francisco Bay area. John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco Systems, supports McCain's bid for the nomination.
Romney is the only one to release online fundraising figures to the media, claiming $7.2 million raised online. Hotline On Call broke the figure down to include $3.3y million in simple Web-site fundraising and $3.84 million raised through Quick ComMitt, the campaign's online fundraising pledge entry tool.
But online fundraising figures have been a matter of debate among bloggers. Michael Turk, a
former e-campaign manager for President Bush, wrote at TechPresident that it is unfair to count big donations that are processed online as Internet contributions.
Turk noted that online contributions are typically small, and the Romney Web site would have to have an amazing amount of traffic to raise that much money in small amounts. "If for every 100 visitors, you receive one online contribution, to generate the 22,430 donations, they would have to have a minimum of 22,430,000 visitors through their site in the last 90 days," Turk said.
He argued that the traffic reports don't support that. "Romney would have to have the most successful Internet fundraising effort ever run by anyone (including Democrats), together with the worst direct-mail and telemarketing campaign in the history of politics."
Calls to Romney's press office were not returned by press time.
Other Republican candidates reported their fundraising totals as well. Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas received $1.25 million; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee collected $544,157; Rep. Duncan Hunter of California raised $499,874; and Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado had $1.1 million in donations.
| |
|
Intellectual Property
Web Radio Effort Launched As Royalties Are Upheld
by Andrew Noyes
The lion's share of radio listeners probably have never heard of Reno, Nevada-based world-beat band Sol'Jibe, but if a recently approved music-royalty rate hike takes effect, the group argues that it will have an even harder time finding new fans.
Sol'Jibe and other independent musicians have joined small recording labels and Internet radio providers to protest last month's Copyright Royalty Board ruling that webcasters should pay a higher fee to major labels beginning May 15. They launched a formal awareness-building campaign Monday at a Web radio summit in Las Vegas.
Backers of the SaveNetRadio initiative said the board's decision would increase rates that webcasters pay to play music online by as much as 1,200 percent and would require a $500-per-station/per-channel minimum royalty. Such a structure could quickly put a number of online radio stations out of business, the group warned.
Sol'Jibe drummer Cody Remaklus told reporters on a conference call that the new rate "will not only bankrupt Web radio, it will be a step backward for Internet accessibility itself." Independent artists cannot afford to lose Internet radio, he said, calling the platform "the down comforter in an otherwise frigid music business."
The creation of SaveNetRadio coincided with the royalty board's announcement that it will not rehear the case, despite pleas from some of the parties involved. Certain aspects of the initial determination deserve clarification, but none of the challengers made "a sufficient showing of new evidence" to warrant a rehearing, Chief Judge James Sledge wrote in his order.
After the rejection is published in the Federal Register, parties will have 30 days to begin the appeals process with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, said Dave Oxenford, an attorney representing several small webcasters.
Congressional action may be the ruling opponents' best hope, members of SaveNetRadio said. Webcaster Kurt Hanson, who runs AccuRadio.com, said the "willing buyer, willing seller" standard on which the board based its decision could be changed legislatively.
The model, which critics argue leaves no room for public-interest considerations, should be traded in for one "that would allow the [Internet radio] industry to survive," said Hanson, who organized the annual conference where SaveNetRadio was launched.
Johnie Floater, general manager for media at the Web radio portal Live365, said it may be time for lawmakers to revisit a 2002 webcasting law, which set royalty rates for small, commercial webcasters and made possible "all the activity going on today" in that vibrant online community.
The Digital Media Association, which represents America Online, Microsoft and Yahoo, issued a statement supporting SaveNetRadio. DiMA's Jonathan Potter said interested parties must tell lawmakers they cannot let May 15 be "the day the music died."
SoundExchange, a nonprofit that collects royalties from digital music services and distributes them to rights holders, called the board's ruling fair and well-reasoned. Officials have sent that message to Capitol Hill and are interested in working with webcasters to see whether they can come to an understanding on issues that divide them.
SoundExchange Executive Director John Simson called the latest CRB action a victory for artists and labels that "look forward to working with the Internet radio industry -- large and small, commercial and non-commercial -- so that together we can ensure it succeeds as a place where great music is available to music lovers of all genres."
| |
|
E-Government
FDA's Web Overhaul Won't Inform Public, Critics Say
by Aliya Sternstein
Contrary to the expectations of the Food and Drug Administration, a planned overhaul of the FDA's Web site will not generate a better informed public, some health experts say.
On Friday, FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach sent a memorandum to FDA staff, stating, "A modern and effective FDA Web site is critically important for the agency to serve the public. Improving our Web site will help us to further cultivate trust, transparency, and communication among all of our stakeholders."
The transformation, which will occur over coming months, is designed to streamline Web operations, expand FDA's "reach and effectiveness in our communications by improving the user's experience," and "reflect both user needs and FDA priorities." The thinking is that retooling FDA's Web presence will help the agency communicate more competently with the public and internal staff.
John Pippin, a senior medical and research adviser at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, disagrees with the public outreach approach. "I don't think this will help much to make the public more knowledgeable about the FDA's processes, the risks and benefits of drugs, and the post-marketing safety issues at the heart of recent reform efforts," he said.
Pippin added that "relatively few normal people" will turn to the FDA site for advice and safety information because doing so will be intimidating or too bothersome. He pointed out that consulting the FDA site will be impossible for those without computers or computer skills -- "perhaps the very people most at risk for bad outcomes."
The facelift might solve the FDA's internal communication problems, but it is a "quick fix" that would not offer much comfort to the public.
"If the FDA truly wants to reach Americans," the content "has to be made available where they get their information," Pippin said. "[F]or most Americans, I think it is still television, newspapers, magazines, radio and their doctors' offices."
Sidney Wolfe, director of the Health Research Group at Public Citizen, said the upgrade should not be painted as a better public service. "Having a nice Web site is not a substitute for having an adequate regulatory agency," he said Monday. "They've done a miserable job regulating drugs, devices and other things under their jurisdiction."
To the FDA's credit, he said, the agency has a massive amount of information online, and to the extent the agency "can get it out there," that is helpful. But "public relations and communications" are "not a substitute for good regulation."
In Friday's notice, Eschenbach stated that the first piece of the new, improved Web environment will be the launch of "a user-friendly" Web page: "Consumer Health Information for You and Your Family." The guide will feature timely consumer stories on pressing FDA topics, offer links to the agency's most requested information and incorporate interactive content, he said.
The agency will discontinue the printing of FDA Consumer magazine, shifting resources to "more effective modern communication vehicles, such as a consumer health information e-newsletter."
| |
|
E-Government
Iowa's High Court To Decide Fate Of Traffic Cameras
by Michael Martinez
Lawmakers and civil libertarians in Iowa are on a collision course over the use of automated traffic cameras in the Hawkeye State.
Legislators in the state House last week rejected legislation to ban the devices, taking action only a few days after the Senate voted to prohibit the cameras. But the fate of any legislation produced this year will depend on whether the state's top court decides such camera systems are legal.
The Iowa Supreme Court this past winter agreed to hear an appeal of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union that challenges the system deployed in Davenport, the first city in the state to install cameras to ticket speeding drivers.
In a separate case, a state judge this year ruled that the ordinance under which Davenport enforces tickets issued by the camera system is illegal. The city, which has collected more than $1 million in traffic penalties through the cameras, has appealed that ruling.
In a telephone interview, ACLU-Iowa Executive Director Ben Stone said traffic cameras have ignited a politically charged debate about the intersection of the state's privacy and traffic laws. According to Stone, the Davenport ordinance is designed as an end-around to the state's traffic code because the cameras issue tickets as civil, not criminal, violations.
Stone also takes issue with the fact that the violations recorded by Davenport's cameras are not reported to state officials. He said municipalities should seek statewide legislation to modify the traffic code before they pass their own ordinances and begin collecting fines.
"The principle should be that without changes to the state code, local jurisdictions should not be able to give people civil penalties," he said. "And that's an issue that should be debated at the state level and an issue that goes before the governor if it it's going to happen in Iowa."
Debates about traffic cameras have surfaced in several other states recently. Last month, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine signed into law a measure to let law enforcers issue tickets based on traffic cameras.
But last week, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that a traffic camera system deployed in Minneapolis is illegal. The court argued that the system violates regulations because it holds drivers liable for violations even though it is impossible to prove whether they were driving the photographed vehicles.
Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Ryback said he would lobby for legislation to change the state's uniform traffic code so his city's camera system would be permissible.
The ACLU's Minnesota affiliate supported the plaintiff in the case. Stone said he hoped the legal fight in Iowa would run a similar course. "It's virtually the same issue in our state," Stone said.
| |
|
Nanotechnology
Experts Advocate More Investments In Nanotechnology
by Winter Casey
The U.S. government should pay more attention to the environmental and safety aspects of nanotechnology as the field develops, the former chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee said Monday.
Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y, who retired at the end of the 109th Congress, told an audience at the Woodrow Wilson Center that a spending priority should be research and development for the health and safety implications of the science, which focuses on matter at the atomic and molecular levels.
Boehlert said he has pushed for the government to devote more funding toward science and education. He noted that a bill authorizing nanotech programs through fiscal 2008 will need to be reauthorized and hearings will be held.
Boehlert opposes any bans concerning nanotechnology products but said it is important to increase the knowledge base and invest more resources in the science. The potential positive uses of nanotechnologies are limitless, he said.
Earlier Monday morning, John Marburger, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and others gathered at the New Executive Office Building to give reporters background on nanotechnology issues.
Marburger said there has been unprecedented government coordination to address nanotechnology. He also said agencies are voluntarily putting money into nanotech safety.
Stan Williams of Hewlett-Packard said he is extremely concerned at where the United States stands on the nanotechnology front compared to the rest of the world. While other countries have been increasing their investments and improving their education on the subject, the United States needs to focus on remaining a world leader, he said.
HP may literally have to go offshore in order to meet its nanotechnology staffing needs, Williams said, arguing that the U.S. government must spend more money on the science.
However, Williams noted that he has personally witnessed an increase in American-born HP applications since the National Nanotechnology Initiative was created to coordinate multi-agency efforts in nanoscale science, engineering and technology.
Williams said companies always will invest some research and development money overseas because they will need to address the markets in other countries where they operate. But there are many extra costs that arise from running offshore operations, he added, and in many cases the additional costs outweigh differences in salary pay.
Chad Mirkin, the founder of two nanotech startup companies, warned that if the United States is not careful, Europe and Asia are "going to eat our lunch in this area." If things become so difficult in the United States to do nanotechnology research, it "becomes more attractive to do research elsewhere," he said.
Marburger also noted that countries are pursuing the establishment of common nanotech standards.
| |
|
|
|
On The Download
Mitt Romney Gets The First Spotlight At YouTube
by Shira Toeplitz, The Hotline
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney wants to have a conversation with voters, so the YouTube video-sharing site has put Romney in the Spotlight -- or rather the hot seat -- as part of its new online video series that will showcase one presidential candidate each week.
YouTube has given all of the presidential candidates the opportunity to ask its users a question and solicit their responses online. At the end of their respective weeks in the Spotlight, candidates will respond to users with another video clip.
Romney's first question asks users: "What do you believe is America's single-greatest challenge and what would you do to address it?"
The clips received prominent attention at the top of YouTube's news and politics page, which certainly has helped Romney attain the 330,000-plus views since the video was posted and become the ninth most viewed video on all of YouTube this past week, according to statistics on the video-sharing Web site. So far all the other presidential candidates have signed on except for a couple of Republicans. YouTube News and Politics head Steve Grove said his company is currently still in talks with their individual campaigns.
It's important to note that a Republican went first in this series. Although Grove said that was just a matter of scheduling, it is incredibly convenient for Romney because so far Democrats have gotten most of the online YouTube attention with so-called viral videos like "1984". It also is quite convenient timing for Romney politically, as he comes off his media bump last week from his high campaign fundraising totals.
Since Romney's video was posted Wednesday, more than 61 people have submitted video responses to his question, and more than 1,000 written comments have been added to his page. The video responses vary a great deal on issues.
Mostly posted by young males, a handful of the videos dealt with international and foreign policy issues, a few were about either education or health care, and a couple of clips were on immigration. In other words, there is no consensus so far on what users think Romney should consider America's greatest challenge. But that should not be a surprise given how generic Romney's question was.
The campaign has control over which response videos are posted to its page, though a user could find some of the rejected videos by searching YouTube.
Of the written comments thus far, some users have contributed substantive questions like, "How about answer how long we will stay in Iraq if you are elected?" There also are numerous comments about Romney's Mormon religion and his notoriously well-coiffed hairstyle.
It will be interesting to see who gets the most negative attention and just how many generic questions politicians can ask the general public without getting too wonky. Romney's campaign has a couple of people on the job of approving comments, but what about someone with higher name identification who elicits strong feelings, such as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.? How much of an effort will her campaign make to control the comments and response videos?
Or will the level of dialogue actually depend on what kind of questions the candidate might ask? As one Romney responder puts it: "The questions for these political YouTube videos need to be more specific. General topics leave no room for addressing specific problems in a specific way."
At least here is one bonus for Romney: Many of respondents congratulated the former Massachusetts governor for being the first candidate to ask YouTube users their opinions. It seems many users did not realize that YouTube picked him for scheduling reasons and that he is just first in the series of candidates.
Editor's Note: On The Download is Hotline's dispatch on politics, multimedia and the Internet.
|
Today's Feature:
Issue of the Week
A federal court's rejection of a 1998 law aimed at protecting children online was a major defeat for the Justice Department and the latest loss suffered by proponents of the mandate, which the Supreme Court blocked three years ago.
Every Monday, read the Issue of the Week by the Technology Daily staff.
|
|
|
|
E-briefs
Civil Liberties: Civil libertarians on Monday assailed a Bush administration proposal to change the decades-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act on the eve of a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the topic. Mike German, a former FBI agent and American Civil Liberties Union policy counsel, told reporters the Justice Department's submission to lawmakers late last week would "gut" FISA by opening international telephone calls and electronic communications to secret government surveillance. The proposal also would exempt "untargeted collection of domestic communications information" and make obtaining a FISA surveillance order easier, German said. Any entity that participates in the eavesdropping, including telecommunications firms and their employees, would be immune from legal liability under the administration's changes, he said. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander and Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein are slated to testify at the afternoon hearing. A closed-door meeting is scheduled for Thursday on telecommunications liability.
E-Government: The Federal Election Commission wants the Senate to require electronic filing of campaign finance reports, according to the agency's annual recommendations to Congress, which were announced last week. The proposal, currently under Senate consideration, would expedite public access to campaign finance information and improve efficiency within the FEC, according to the commission. Currently, the reporting process involves handwritten documents that a private firm transcribes and then saves as a digital snapshot, at a cost of about $250,000 per year. House candidates already submit their reports electronically. FEC Chairman Robert Lenhard called the recommendations, "measured, common-sense changes that would bolster the commission's ability to efficiently and effectively perform its disclosure and enforcement duties."
Security: Two senators this week plan to introduce legislation to ensure that local television and radio stations can operate and broadcast public-safety information during emergencies. The bill by Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, essentially would recognize local broadcast stations as part of the emergency response community. It would designate radio and television stations providing disaster-related programming as "first-response broadcasters" and open access to federal supplies of fuel, water and food, Landrieu said Monday in a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters convention. It would help prevent the government from seizing broadcasters' supplies needed to stay on the air, such as fuel used for generators and electricity. The legislation also would give broadcasters access to a disaster area in order to restore transmitters and other key facilities, and it would authorize a grant program to upgrade infrastructure. NAB and other broadcasting interests have endorsed the bill.
Intellectual Property: Serious corrective actions are needed to preserve meaningful intellectual property protection worldwide, 14 representatives of patent examiners' organizations from North America and Europe warned in a joint letter to their respective government patent offices last week. The letter stated that "pressures on examiners to produce and methods of allocating work have reduced the capacity of examiners to provide the quality of examination the peoples of the world deserve." An increase in patent applications does not necessarily represent an increase in technological progress, the signatories said. "Poor-quality patents can become a hindrance to, rather than a stimulus of, innovation and economic growth," they said. The groups recommend that patent offices provide examiners with more time to study patent applications; remove from any reporting, rating or incentive systems any bias with respect to granting patents; and guarantee the independence of the examination process so it is governed solely by the legal framework.
Business: Comcast announced Monday that it will distribute and provide content for the planned online video service led by News Corp. and NBC Universal. The cable firm will supply content from Comcast Networks, including E!, the Golf Channel, Style and Versus. The project's other partners include America Online, Microsoft and Time Warner.
|
|
|
President -- John Fox Sullivan, 202-739-8468
Editor in Chief -- Louis Peck, 202-739-8481
Editor -- K. Daniel Glover (bio)
Assistant Editor -- Theresa Poulson
Senior Writers -- David Hatch (bio), Heather Greenfield (bio), Andrew Noyes (bio) and Aliya Sternstein (bio)
Special Correspondent -- Chris Strohm (bio)
Staff Writer -- Michael Martinez
Senior Business Affairs Manager -- Chris Hamby
Business Affairs Associate -- Anne TeBeest
Advertising Sales -- Alex Treadway
National Journal's Technology Daily is published every weekday, except holidays, by National Journal Group Inc., 600 New Hampshire Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20037.
| | ©2006 by National Journal Group Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction or transmission in any form of this product by any means—from a retrieval service or any other electronic form or from a photocopy—in whole or part without permission is strictly prohibited.
National Journal Group makes no representations or warranties with respect to and is not responsible for the content of World Wide Web sites linked to by this publication but not controlled by National Journal Group.
Please read the details of our Privacy Policy.
Editorial: 202-266-7197
Fax: 202-266-7094
Subscription
Inquiries: 202-266-7264
Customer Service: 202-266-7230 or 1-800-207-8001
|
|
|
|
