Election '08: Seeking a 'Tech President'

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On the other side of the issue is Edwards, whose campaign says: "Patent litigation reforms that may encourage innovation in some industries may hinder innovation in others," including alternative energy. "American competitiveness is too important for us to let our intellectual-property rules be skewed by lobbyists arguing for their own industries' narrow interests." McCain's campaign says the U.S. patent system should change to improve patent quality and reduce litigation.

Immigration

The foreign-worker problem faced by tech companies is played out in the struggle over so-called H-1B visas, which are awarded to foreign nationals who attend American universities and want to work for U.S. companies. This year the government allocated 65,000 of the visas. Tech companies, eager to land well-educated and highly skilled employees from abroad, say that's too few. "Historically, America has succeeded because the best and the brightest come here," says Maeder of Highland Capital Partners.

A sweeping 2007 immigration bill proposed raising the cap on the visas to 115,000 in 2008, but it was defeated in the Senate in June. Microsoft is taking matters into its own hands. In September the company opened a development office in Vancouver, Canada, largely to employ foreign workers who were prohibited from employment in the U.S. "We haven't given up hope," Krumholtz says.

McCain was a strong supporter of President Bush's attempt at immigration reform, which also included a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and measures to strengthen border security. According to McCain policy director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, standalone H-1B legislation could also be a possibility. In a policy paper written for BusinessWeek.com, the McCain campaign says the Arizona senator supports expansion of the H-1B cap but that the measure alone won't make the U.S. more competitive. "Opening new and integrated world markets won't automatically translate into higher quality of life for every American," the paper says, echoing a position taken by opponents of H-1Bs. The government should do more to help U.S. workers get education and training, McCain's campaign says.

Edwards' position may be seen as less tech-friendly. He would require employers to show they couldn't have given an H-1B job to an American, and he would increase fees for companies that employ H-1B workers, his campaign says.

Math and Science Education

Not surprisingly, Democrats have staked out the most comprehensive proposals for improving the state of math, science, engineering, and computer-science education at the K-to-12 level. The America Competes Act authorizes more funding for university research and K-to-12 education, but Clinton, Obama, and Edwards want to go further.

Clinton has said she'll triple the number of NSF fellowships and increase the size of each award by a third. She also plans to provide incentives for women and minorities to enter math-, science-, and engineering-related fields by making diversity a requirement for federal education and research grants. Clinton also proposes federal spending on university programs that encourage women and minorities to pursue those fields. Edwards' campaign says he would create a national plan whereby the government pays for a year of public college for more than 2 million students who take college-prep courses in high school, work part-time during college, and stay out of trouble.

Telecom Regulation

Two front-burner issues in telecommunications are expanding the availability of high-speed Internet access to more Americans in rural and inner-city areas, and the debate over whether phone and cable companies should be allowed to charge extra fees to high-traffic sites whose data is transmitted over their networks.

Most of the major candidates support higher broadband penetration, though they differ on how to get there. Obama has taken perhaps the most nuanced position, arguing that increasing broadband access not only creates markets but constitutes vital social policy as well. "That makes him doubly attractive to lots of people," says Frederick Baron, a partner at law firm Cooley Godward Kronish. A technology adviser to Obama says the Illinois senator sees broadband as an engine for job creation and tackling urban poverty.

Then there's the sticky issue of Net neutrality, or the idea that telecommunications and cable companies shouldn't be able to discriminate among companies that deliver content via networks—say, by giving precedence to certain companies in exchange for higher tolls. Network operators such as AT&T (T), Verizon Communications (VZ), and Comcast (CMCSA) rail against federally mandated constraints on their ability to charge fees and navigate network traffic. Intel, Google, and Yahoo (YHOO) are among the tech companies that favor Net-neutrality legislation.

Here, the candidates split by party lines. Giuliani's campaign says in a statement that the federal government "must fight the urge to unnecessarily tax and overregulate the Internet" and that government intervention should be limited largely to protecting consumers and businesses against hackers and others who commit cybercrimes. McCain favors reshaping the FCC so that it takes a less regulatory approach and intervenes in markets only when there has been an infraction or unfair competition. Among Democrats, Obama supports Net neutrality and has positioned the issue as one of equal speech on the Internet. Clinton in January announced that she supports a reintroduced version of a Net-neutrality bill that has failed to make headway in Congress.

For more on the 2008 Presidential candidates and their positions on technology issues, visit BusinessWeek's slide show.

Ricadela is a writer for BusinessWeek.com in Silicon Valley.