Der New Yorker Techno-Kandidat

Andrew Rasiej (Das wird wohl Ra-SHAY ausgesprochen),ist einer von vier demokratischen Kandidaten für das New York City’s Office of Public Advocate. Wired hat ein Interview mit ihm gemacht, weil er sehr progressiv mit dem Medium Internet im Wahlkampf umgeht und viele gute Ideen hat:

Rasiej: For one, I’m blogging as much as I can find time for, and we’re going to podcast and video-blog as well. We’ve already built into the site the ability for people to give us their cell-phone number to schedule a text-message reminder on when to go vote, and we’re going to post every suggestion a person makes to the site, both on how to make the city better and how to improve the campaign. We’re going to demonstrate the viability of universal broadband by getting some volunteers together to „light up“ some buildings in poor neighborhoods with Wi-Fi. We’re going to get volunteers to show how easy it will be to use cell phones for civic engagement, by informing people when the next train is due in at some subway hubs and by encouraging people to post pictures of potholes and other things that need fixing to Flickr or a similar photo-blogging platform.

But most important, we’re encouraging people to use this campaign to think and act creatively and collectively in ways that the net makes more viable. The network will come up with the best ideas on how to approach politics, and I’m listening as hard as I can. I can’t become New York’s public advocate without all the other public advocates in this great city. We can only be elected together. If elected, the public advocate’s office will be their office.