Clinton's Broadband Proposals Losing Support

That may be kind of hard to do – you know, destroy it – but Stoller's ratcheted-up rhetoric does bring to light how Clinton and other Congressional Democrats plan to model their broadband expansion policies on Connect Kentucky, which isn't as gumdrops-and-butterflies as it's made out to be.

For example, I work in Lexington, but live in a town (if you can call it that) that up until 20 years ago or so people were still dialing only four digits for local calls. Let's just say it's south and east, the general direction of the proposed improvements.

BellSouth busted Southeast Telephone's block, the only real phone competitor, leaving the choice of broadband in my area between BellSouth and TimeWarner, which everybody in the neighborhood (okay, town) says just doesn't keep up either. BellSouth is definitely the best available, but there's not much available.

But at least we have broadband, which is more than can be said for other places, despite reports that 97 percent of Kentucky is wired up. Other, less self-interested measurers (i.e., numbers not produced by BellSouth-run Connect Kentucky insiders) have broadband penetration at under 33 percent, and say Kentucky ranks in the upper 40s out of 50 states in other key indicators, in some instances lower than when the project began.

The same AT&T/BellSouth flunkies in charge of Fletcher's Kentucky Connect are headed upstairs to run a similar program for the whole country, and Clinton is a big champion of that, perhaps just because it sounds good and is saleable to a greater number of people than will actually put it under scrutiny.

And remember, Kentucky has a tradition of being exactly where mainstream America is in terms of social consciousness and values; take a look at how many years in a row the state's electors have voted for the eventual winner of the Presidential election. We're better than fortune tellers in that respect.

This is one reason more liberal technologically savvy pundits are throwing their support behind Obama, instead, as – at least, like everything else he says, as demonstrated by his pretty words – his agenda for Internet growth is more inline with consumer needs and protections, even if it's less politically attractive in some respects, what with a real understanding for how it works and a lack of appropriate buzzwords to sell to the masses.