Pete Ashdown Takes on Orrin Hatch
I hope all the geeks out there (and I mean this affectionately) in Utah are going to vote this November. Idealist, philosopher, eccentric, smart, technologically savvy Pete Ashdown is running against Orrin Hatch for a senate seat (link to Wired News article about Pete).
I wanted to write an article for Connect about his defeat (not that I want him to be defeated) and what politicians everywhere can learn from his campaign. We know if we were voting for the most technical of the two, Pete would win hands down. I’d love to see what he could do with those skills in office! He’d blog about his voting, send us email newsletters, you name it. I envision one key element of his term: transparency, something we could use a lot more of with politicians.
Flashback to my college days and meeting Orrin Hatch about Utah wilderness (now that’s scary)- the rudest politician I’ve ever met. I actually wrote a letter to the editor about it and sent it to the Washington Post. I don’t believe it was published, things like rude politicans probably aren’t news in Washington. I should’ve submitted it to the Salt Lake Tribune!
To reach future voters politicans are going to have to learn MySpace, blogs, rss, and more. Pete should be the politican’s consultant. If he weren’t a democrat in Utah, running against an extremely popular republican…let’s just say the chances are slim, but still.
Seriously I’m a big fan. He not only owns Xmission (who gives free wireless to downtown Salt Lake and I wish Orem) he blogs, has a wiki and drives an insane campaign bus. This rail thin politician spoke at the Utah bloggers conference. I was absolutely enthralled. You know me, prone to idol worship at times. I’m still game to write the article, if I can get a publication. I promise it will be a good read.
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