Debrief: My 2017 Campaign for NYC Public Advocate

Every vote has been counted, and 74% of NYC voters want Democrat Letitia James to continue as Public Advocate. I congratulated her on her success and will happily work with her to make NYC’s government more open, transparent and participatory. I hope she’ll take me up on my offer.

Those experienced in third-party NYC politics say our campaign did pretty darn well. We got more votes than the other Libertarian candidates – which technically makes me the most popular candidate (most votes) from the nation’s third political party (Libertarian) in the nation’s largest city (NYC)!  🙂

In earnest, my campaign was always about getting important ideas out there: open source, participatory democracy, “Big City Libertarianism,” faster/better/cheaper city government, the need for a 211 system, transparent capital budgets, and more. We definitely did that by reaching well over 100,000 people between our op-eds, videos, podcasts, social media posts, and ads.

While my 2017 campaign for Public Advocate is now over, my efforts to improve NYC are just beginning. Here’s what’s next for me:

• Continue developing many open source software resources and encourage their usage by politicians, journalists and everyday New Yorkers;
• Become a consistent contributor to publications and independent media who explains how technologies can be used to reform government and make it more open, inclusive and participatory;
• Take a more active role within the NYC-based Libertarian Party so that it becomes a more operationally effective organization and more competitive in local, state and national politics;
• Expand-upon and spread the ideas of “Big City Libertarianism” to other cities around the country.

I’ve created a presentation, originally for the Open Camps conference, that explains my campaign’s goals and achievements.

I’ve also create a list of media appearances and other campaign outcomes below: