Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

Andrew Rasiej got 5% of the vote in his campaign to be NYC's Public Advocate. The incumbent, with the power of the incumbency and the NY Times' endorsement, got 48%. Too bad. Andrew would have been good for NYC, would have invigorated the office, and would have been good for the Net.

Here's part of Andrew's concession/victory speech:

I don't consider this to be anything other than a victory speech…We changed the whole notion of what the Public Advocate's office could be…It doesn't matter what the percentages are, we created a real debate about what the Public Advocate's office could be and we raised a lot of important ideas…In case you didn't hear, today the New York Parks Department announced that they will be giving free Wi-Fi in most of the city's parks today.

Andrew, I'm glad you ran. You ran a campaign of ideas. You were honest, open and transparent. You pulled together a community of supporters who will go on to the next fight and the next one. You showed us some of what's possible in the new connected world. Thank you, Andrew.