With all the Obamarama fever around here, it's easy to forget that the race for president is still tight. There's a large contingency of Americans out there who support another candidate -- one who, as it happens, does not use email. A scary thought, eh? But is it fair to judge John McCain based on what could be argued to be a disadvantage of his age? In last week's TIME magazine, tech writer Lev Grossman argued that an "Off-Line American" like McCain wouldn't be well suited to deal with issues like Net neutrality. Here's an excerpt with some interesting stats:

McCain is an example of what, under the Clinton Administration, used to be called the digital divide. Back then it was the cause of much gnashing of political teeth; in his 2000 State of the Union address, Clinton announced a "national crusade" to take the Internet to those who didn't have it. That year 41.5% of Americans were online, according to U.S. Census numbers. This past May a survey by the research firm Parks Associates found that 82% are. The off-line American has gone from a disenfranchised minority to an endangered species.

But the great cybercrusade hasn't reached McCain. We could just shrug and assume that McCain, at 71, is typical of his age group, but that's actually not the case. While it's true, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, that only 35% of Americans over the age of 65 are online, if you look at the subset for McCain's race, gender and education, the number is more like 75%. McCain is way behind.

Well yeah, McCain probably shouldn't be totally disconnected if he's trying to run our country, but I think it's a stretch to call those on the other side of the digital divide "an endangered species." I don't know too many people in their 70s who regularly use "the Google." And as the article also points out, there are advantages as well to not falling victim to what Grossman calls a "weapon of mass distraction."