Our campaign ended last night with a disappointing 5% of the vote. Disappointing, but not surprising.
With 99.87% of the precincts reporting, here are the details on the Democratic primary for NYC Public Advocate:
Betsy Gotbaum: 48.04%
Norman Siegel: 30.36%
Michael Brown: 9.09%
Andrew Rasiej: 5.17%
Jay Golub: 4.78%
Damon Cabbagestalk: 2.56%
Frankly, it was clear for some time that we weren't going to break out, for a whole bunch of reasons. But I am proud of the work we did, and our success in putting new ideas into the political debate in New York City (and maybe elsewhere).
The only thing that truly hurts is the notion that, despite being in the two televised debates, raising over a million dollars and building a real campaign, we got fewer votes than someone named "Michael Brown" who raised almost no money and didn't really campaign. Was it a sympathy vote for people who had heard that name in the news (the ex-FEMA director)? Or just people picking the most common-sounding name?
Whatever. Right now I need to get some sleep and take some time to reflect. Over the next few days and weeks, I promise a full and frank post-mortem on what we did right and what we did wrong, and what those of us who believe in the potential of new communications tools to transform politics should learn from this race.
Feel free to jump in with your own comments (I thought the comments on Dominic Basulto's latest post, for example, were pretty provocative.)
Posted by msifry at September 14, 2005 12:44 PM