bottom up change

One of my best moments of the 2008 election was when I learned that Obama had won Virginia. If you are a liberal who had the misfortune of living under the rule of Governor George Allen and then Governor Jim Gilmore back in the 90s, you know what I mean.  With the Democrats having basically taken over the state in recent years–Gov. Tim Kaine, Sen. Jim Webb, and now Sen. Mark Warner–Barack Obama winning Virginia means it is now one of the hottest battlegrounds in the nation, and is likely to remain so for quite a long time.

So back in my home state of Virginia, there’s a governor’s race that’s starting to heat up. I’ve been following the race, and it looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun. How could it not be with Terry McAuliffe running? But even more than that, it looks like the Republican candidate is going to be worth watching as well for his “techno-savvy”:

The commonwealth’s current attorney general is promising that unlike
other recent Republican campaigns, his will aggressively target younger voters using new technology. On Monday, the same day Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe used text messaging to announce his first TV spot, McDonnell posted a promise on the popular conservative blog RedState that Republicans, not Democrats, will be the tech-wizards of the 2009 governor’s race.

“If I know one thing, I know that people are interacting with media
in a way that we have never before seen,” McDonnell wrote. “I recognize this and I believe that people will see us as the techno-savvy campaign this year. We understand younger voting demographics, we understand new media technologies, and we understand the remarkable power of successfully reaching voters with our common sense, conservative message.”

Um, psst, AG McDonnell: if you want to win over younger voters, you might want to avoid using the term “techno-savvy” to sell yourself as someone who understands new technology and new media.

This guy is apparently one of the many Republicans who think that their technology deficits compared to the Democrats is their primary problem getting through to young people. Sorry, friends. It’s your candidates, your ideas, and your record that is the main problem.

President-elect Barack Obama is a cool-headed politician with style and grace. He may be the hippest person to be elected President ever. With all those trips to the gym, he’s also in great shape. He is a huge sports fan.

But as his obsession with his Blackberry and his penchant for effortlessly discussing the minute details of policy demonstrates, he may also be a geek. I mean that in the best way: I’m using “geek” in the sense of a person who is proficient in technical/intellectual subjects to a much greater degree than most people. Under my definition, you don’t need to be socially inept and unpopular to be a geek. Maybe that used to be the case, but the Obama administration may make being a geek cool (again?).

It really began to sink in how different having an intellectual President was going to be after watching Obama’s first post-election press conference.  Then the appointments began: Summers, Clinton, Geithner, Romer, Volker, Chu, Kagan, and today, Genachowski, just to name a few. Then change.gov kept innovating with new and geeky features: from two rounds of Open for Questions, to the weekly YouTube address by Obama, to Your Seat at the Table, to the latest Citizen’s Briefing Book, to highly produced YouTube mini-documentaries of Tom Daschle and the policy team discussing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan. Woah! Two months into the transition, I think I am now officially suffering from symptoms of Cerebral Policy.

So get ready America. The geeks are coming to Washington next week. I can hardly wait.