Hi Amy and Valerie,
(note: I am neither a dem nor a repub and this is not a flame :-) ) I would have to respectfully disagree with your analysis. It is clear that McCain will continue Bush policies on secrecy, net neutrality, and the hyper-corporatization of the entire spectrum at the expense of things like low power FM (LPFM). It's only natural since one of McCain's chief technology advisors (and drafter of his technology
position) is former FCC Chairman Michael Powell, who vigorously worked toward selling off large swaths of spectrum to large corporations and toward changing media rules to allow for large media companies to completely take over media markets at the expense of local voices.
Their stances on "sunshine" and network neutrality are night and day and Obama's got more interesting ideas like "open source government"
and having a chief technology officer (CTO). those are just a few of the issues in which they differ and which will have a huge effect on access to govt info (and libraries in general).
lessig has a fine video regarding the presidential candidates technology policies. Granted Lessig is pro-Obama and states that at the outset, but I think he makes some good points about where the US is at in terms of technology infrastracture and where each of the candidates will take the country.
http://lessig.org/blog/2008/08/me_on_mccain_on_technology.html
On the surface, the two candidates' technology policies may be similar, but looking beyond those policy statements to take into account the candidates' advisors and their past legislative stances shows that the two candidates are at completely different ends of the policy spectrum.
Regards,
James Jacobs
International Documents Librarian
Stanford University
jrjacobs@stanford.edu