Next Tuesday, September 10th, Democrats and Republicans will go to the polls to pick their mayoral candidates for the general election on November 5th. It is possible that no Democrat candidate will get to 40% in the primary and then there will be a runoff.
There are also several independent candidates, including the tech community's very own Jack Hidary.
The Gotham Gal and I have provided financial support to several of the candidates and our giving record is public record. That said, the goal of this post is not to convince any of you to vote for a specific candidate.
What I do recommend is that all NY'ers who read this blog take the time this weekend to watch the excellent video interviews the NY Tech Meetup did with seven of the leading candidates in late July and August. All the videos are here.
If you don't have time for all seven, I would strongly suggest you watch at least five of them, Jack Hidary (I), Christine Quinn (D), Bill de Blasio (D), Joe Lhota (R), and Bill Thompson (D). Each video is thirty minutes.
These videos are as close as many of us will get to a face to face conversation with these candidates between now and election day next week and I believe it is best to know a bit about the candidates before you walk into the polls.
And if I can make another suggestion, I would encourage everyone in the NYC tech community to vote next tuesday.
For a sense of how much of an impact the NY tech community could make in the Democratic primary, consider this. In the 2009 NYC Democratic mayoral primary 330,659 people voted. That's only about 2% of the entire adult population of NYC. It is conventional wisdom that whomever wins the Democratic primary is likely to be the next Mayor of NYC. So 2% of the adult population of NYC will likely determine the next Mayor. That is nuts!
There are over 34,000 members of the NY Tech Meetup. So if 2/3 of us are Democrats (an informed guess), then that means that over 20,000 members of the NY Tech Meetup could vote in the Democratic primary next Tuesday. And that would represent 6% of the total number of voters in the last Mayoral primary. That's not enough to elect the next Mayor but it is enough to prevent a front runner from avoiding a runoff. And it also enough to propel one of the contenders into a runoff.
So please do three things between now and Tuesday; 1) watch the videos, 2) take the time to go to the polls on Tuesday, and 3) please encourage all of your co-workers to do the same. Thank you.
