The site didn’t get fleshed out nearly as much as I thought it would, both because I had anticipated having more time to contribute to the wiki, and because I thought I would get far more user contributions. (Strangely, more than half of the people who registered for an account made no changes to the wiki.)

Now that Obama is the Democratic nominee, the primary purpose of the site is no longer there. I don’t think many people comparing Obama to McCain will be worried about Obama’s level of experience, and if they are considering McCain in the first place, then Obama’s reformist resume will probably turn them off anyway. (oh wait, McCain used to stand for campaign finance reform… I guess that’s over with).

Anyway, I’m tempted to just take it down. I don’t have time to contribute to it, and no one else seems to either. It’s the first hit on Google for “Obama’s Resume”, which is a good and bad thing. Good because, in theory it is being found very quickly by exactly the people who would be looking for it, bad because there isn’t much useful info on there.

What do you, dear reader, think I should do with the site? Leave it? Hype it more? Take it down?

Anyone want to take it over?

ObamasResume.org aims to put together a simple and complete description of Barack Obama’s career, which will be useful for Obama supporters to show their Clinton supporter friends. Anyone may edit this wiki.

The content is a little sparse right now — but that’s why it’s a wiki! Head on over and help me fill it in, so that we can start sending it around to our well-meaning-but-tragically-uninformed Clinton-supporter friends in Texas, Ohio, Vermont, Rhode Island, Wyoming, and Missouri.

Only 10 percent of Clinton contributors did not donate the legal maximum $2,300 for her primary campaign. In contrast, only three percent of Obama donors gave the maximum. The rest of the cash came from small sums from many more people.

– The Democratic Take: From Top to Bottom — The Caucus — New York Times Blog

Check out this list of people in technology I respect who also support Obama:

• Peter Norvig, Director of Research, Google
  

  He is the most inspirational, he has the integrity to stand up for what is right and admit when he was wrong (a quality that Clinton seems to lack), and he is honest in answering questions where other candidates are political.

  Most importantly, Obama is willing and able to work with everyone, not just with his base. Clinton wants to reach out to republicans and others who disagree with her, but the level of animosity that many others have towards her may make it difficult for her to do so. McCain and Romney seem to be intent on playing towards their base, and have not shown how they will reach out. Obama has shown he can do it — he can be the president that brings the whole country together and leads us in a new direction.

• Greg DeKoenigsberg, über geek, Fedora community leader, something or other in Red Hat communications, OLPC evangelist
• Lawrence Lessig, intellectual property guru / free culture messiah
  

  … I believe in the policies. Clearly on the big issues — the war and corruption. Obama has made his career fighting both. But also on the issues closest to me. … Obama has committed himself to important and importantly balanced positions.

• The XKCD guy, (makes this comic)
  

  Obama has shown a real commitment to open government. When putting together tech policy … others might have gone to industry lobbyists. Obama went to Lawrence Lessig, founder of Creative Commons … and longtime white knight in the struggle with a broken system over internet and copyright policy. Lessig was impressed by Obama’s commitment to open systems — for example, his support of machine-readable government information standards that allow citizens’ groups to monitor what our government is up to. Right now, the only group that can effectively police the government is the government itself, and as a result, it’s corrupt to the core…

  Obama stands against bad governing not only in his support of specific practices like open data standards and basic network neutrality, but in his work against corruption from day one. He’s sponsored legislation to restrict gifts to Congress by industry representatives (which also carried a whole slew of anti-corruption measures that were a breath of fresh air). He’s fought against vote fraud. He’s been pushing for election and lobbying reform from the start, and in his campaign he’s refused to take lobbyist money.

  Clinton has done nothing of the sort, and when questioned seems baffled that anyone would have a problem with what is, by any reasonable standard, bribery. I find her basic lack of integrity troubling, and I think as president she would continue fighting to maintain the status quo.

• Tim Wu, intellectual property guru, coined the term “Net Neutrality”, professor at Columbia law school
• Karl Fogel, software engineer, open source software community leader, copyright reformer
  

  Barack Obama is exactly what he seems: terrifically smart, well-intentioned, utterly free of the personal insecurities that drive far too much of the decision-making in the current administration, and eminently electable. He stands a much better chance of winning against McCain than any other Democratic candidate would have. The canard that he’s light on policy simply confuses a primary-season tactic for a general electoral strategy. There’s no point trying to out-wonk Hillary Clinton, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t done his homework: when the time comes, it’s there in reserve.

• Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape, very successful entrepreneur/investor/visionary, down to earth and fun blogger
  

  Smart, normal, curious, not radical, and post-Boomer.If you were asking me to write a capsule description of what I would look for in the next President of the United States, that would be it.

  Having met him and then having watched him for the last 12 months run one of the best-executed and cleanest major presidential campaigns in recent memory, I have no doubt that Senator Obama has the judgment, bearing, intellect, and high ethical standards to be an outstanding president — completely aside from the movement that has formed around him, and in complete contradition to the silly assertions by both the Clinton and McCain campaigns that he’s somehow not ready.

Some readers of this blog who know me personally might know that I voted for Nader in 2000, was a Deaniac in 2004, and became completely disengaged from the process and campaign when Kerry was nominated. Some might also know that I’ve been conversationally enthusiastic about Ron Paul for the past few months. In other words– I’m sick of the two-party system (sometimes to the point of pragmatic detriment, I admit), and it takes a very special candidate to get me interested in actively supporting the Democratic party.

Why does Obama interest me so much? This is a big topic, and I admit my familiarity with his policies and history is a bit superficial in areas. And I also have to admit, there is a significant Not Hillary factor influencing me. But all my impressions have come together to form a consistent impression that he is a genuine person who cares about improving our country and government, which is not only Not Hillary but also Anti Hillary.

In subsequent posts, I’m going to explore and explain what I think is so great about Obama.

Meanwhile, for those of you who are already Obama supporters, I urge you to donate to the Obama campaign. I just gave by far the most I’ve ever given to a political campaign. If you believe that Obama is truly competent, genuine, and has a chance, then please, consider making a significant donation. Ask yourself: what is more important?

That might sound silly, but go there and see if you agree. With all that juicy up-to-the-minute content, and in particular the “ObamaHQ” blog (with weak IA semantics in the title tag for both the main blog and individual posts, btw), can’t you just imagine Obama chiming in any minute? “Hi folks. We just got back from Austin. I don’t have time to write much but I just wanted to make a few quick notes about what I learned about what’s on Austinites minds these day.”

Which I feel indicates that they are doing a LOT of things right. But there is just this one missing piece…

If I remember correctly I was getting over some manner of sickness at the time, I may have been hungover and/or not sober, and either the transmission or recording method mangled the sound. I don’t usually sound like a hyperexcited flamboyant duck. (I’ve heard my voice recorded a lot and am very familiar with the difference between my voice in my head and my voice as heard by others).

That said, I’m very pleased with how the podcast turned out. We covered a lot of ground and I think discovered a few things. Check it out.