There is an interesting dialogue going on about which candidate the Democrats should pick to lose in the general election to Bloomberg. We might wish it were otherwise, and I will vote against him, whoever runs. But Bloomberg is going to cruise.
Which really means the most interesting and important race for Democrats tomorrow is for Public Advocate, and it seems to me that there is one clear candidate for people in this community - Andrew Rasiej.
There was a time when people knew who the Public Advocate was, when Mark Green was the high profile gadfly to Rudolph Giuliani. But since Betsy Gotbaum took over, she has turned the office into a sleepy, invisible backwater, never challenging Bllomberg and never connecting with the people.
Andrew Rasiej is an entrepreneur and civic activist - started MOUSE, a technology training program for kids in public schools - and has advocated for better use of technology to solve society's problems.
Andrew's most far-reaching proposal is to ">deliver universal wireless broadband to the city of New York, by creating a municipal public utility with private providers on top of city infrastructure. And in taking this position he has taken on the giants of TelCom, Verizon, Time Warner, et cetera. If for no other reason, the DailyKos community should consider supporting this candidate.
The Democratic Party bosses are all behind Betsy. The New York Times, in one of the all-time most tepid endorsements, is behind Betsy. (Curiously, on the op-ed page, Tom Friedman wrote an uncharacteristically sharp and compelling article about how Rasiej is putting 21st century digital democracy issues into the political debate.)
There is a lot more to say about this candidate, but one thing is clear, in a quiet election where there is very little interest in the top race, a smart mob of Kossacks could send a shockwave through the mediapolitical culture and place an issue of digital democracy front and center.
I apologize if this has been diaried already. I searched and did not find one.