ALAN CHOATE - Daily Herald | Posted: Saturday, October 28, 2006 11:00 pm
Pete Ashdown, the Democrat trying to wrest a Senate seat from five-term incumbent Sen. Orrin Hatch, has his opponent and a 2003 committee hearing to thank for getting him into the race.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, which Hatch chaired at the time, was discussing online music piracy. Hatch famously endorsed the idea of software that would destroy a person's computer if that person tried to download copyrighted material illegally. "That comment outraged me," Ashdown said. "Number one, I believe in this country we are innocent until proven guilty. Number two, I think it is technically inept for Sen. Hatch to say that, because, Number three, this state has a great technology base. "He should be consulting with that technology base instead of consulting with the entertainment industry in California before making statements like that."
So, being a good citizen, he wrote Hatch a letter and promised that "when 2006 rolls around I'll do whatever I can in my power to make sure you're unseated."
Okay, so, it wasn't a friendly letter.
The "unseating" part is likely wishful thinking, however. Hatch's fundraising dwarfs Ashdown's and the race is considered "safe Republican" by analysts. Utah Democrats have a hard time in most federal-level elections.
If nothing else, though, Ashdown has helped bring some technological savvy to the political discourse. He refined his platform using Wikipedia public interface software, and he believes now -- as he has for the last 16 years -- that the Internet has the potential to revolutionize civic life.
Ashdown, the 39-year-old founder of the Internet service provider XMission, got his first real online experience in 1990 while working at Evans and Sutherland, a computer firm. He had recently switched his major at the University of Utah from film to computer science, and the Internet was in its infancy.
"It was before the World Wide Web, it was before people were even aware of the Internet," he said.
The job was Ashdown's first interaction with "a real-time version of the Internet ... I could connect to a university in California and use their research library."
That ability is taken for granted today, but it was new back then. Ashdown said he "started to see the incredible power that the Internet had for research, for communication and also for personal interest." He built a business on that power, and the Internet has changed everything from news reporting to entertainment to dating to commerce. Communication is much more broad-based now, as people can send information, pictures and video all over the world easily.
However, Ashdown said, "It really has not taken that same kind of revolution to politics and government" -- and people in power, Democrat and Republican, bear some of the blame.
"I don't expect any sort of technology leadership coming out of the group we have back there now," he said. "In fact, I find it atrocious that this Congress, which is so intent on monitoring the American people -- even to the extent of going up against the Bill of Rights -- cannot even monitor themselves."
That's partly a reference to the case of ex-Rep. Mark Foley of Florida, who reportedly exchanged improper e-mails and instant messages with teenage congressional pages. ("I know how to monitor instant messages," Ashdown said, adding that instant messages and Internet use in Congress should be monitored.)
But it's also a broader criticism: "Congress is falling down on health care, on immigration, on energy policy and we should monitor what they're doing with our public tax dollars."
For example, members of Congress should post their schedules and phone logs online so that constituents can see who their representative is meeting, Ashdown said. "Their public lives should be public. I don't care about their private lives ... but if they're doing something like taking a trip for a campaign donor, then we should have a clear accounting of what's going on."
There's resistance to that idea, however.
"There is a status quo that doesn't want to see more transparency in government ... because their positions depend on keeping people in the dark," Ashdown said. "That's Democrat and Republican."
And what if, he wondered, the Library of Congress Web site had a comment board functionfi
"Wouldn't it be great if a bill was put up and we could put a comment on what we thought of the bill, and we could read what other Americans thoughtfi" Ashdown said. "Make it more of a two-way street."
That's what he did with his policy proposals -- he started with about a dozen ideas and then, using the collaboratively edited Wikipedia as a model, opened up the discussion to anyone who wanted to contribute. The site now lists about 50 topics, from abortion to water issues, that have been hashed out.
That's the civic potential he sees in the new technological tools.
"I didn't initially realize the incredible power that this collaboration has, but I have full faith that this is a way we can restore the voice of American people in government," Ashdown said. "We're never going to get rid of those special interests and those monied interests in Washington, because they have First Amendment rights, too. But what we can do is raise the voice of the people to be equal."
The Hatch and Ashdown campaigns are not on equal footing. Hatch, who is in line to chair the Senate Finance Committee if the GOP keeps control of the Senate, gathered $4.5 million for his campaign through Sept. 30 and spent $2.4 million. Ashdown has less than 5 percent of that -- $193,000 raised, of which $179,000 has been spent.
Furthermore, 1982 was the last time Hatch failed to get more than 65 percent of the vote. He won that election with 58 percent support.
Ashdown said he's polling at around 30 percent, and he wryly acknowledged the odds are against him.
"If, by some miracle, Sen. Hatch wins, I don't want to stand up and say, 'We lost but we won,' " Ashdown said. "I think there is some dignity to saying, 'We lost, and that's it.' But I'll continue to fight. I'm committed to these ideals."
This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.