In April 2005, after reading an article in The New York Daily News about the upcoming mayoral election I decided to run for Mayor. I was astounded by how much money Mayor Bloomberg had already spent. I was opposed to the West Side Stadium and was uninspired by the Democrats. So figured rather than just complain I'd get involved.

Since I have a longer history as writer and performer than as a politician I decided to pull together the things I was good at and skew my campaign that way. So I started the Blog Party with the aim of bringing the blog revolution to politics - democratizing access and the means of communication. At the same time I saw the whole campaign as a durational performance exploring the construction of mediated identity in a political context. Part of that exploration was to document the campaign on a blog as I ran for office.

While the campaign was not successful politically it was a great success personally and artistically. I met a lot of wonderful people,I learned an enormous amount about the game of politics and I learned a lot about reconstructing personal narrative for fun and art. I may well run for office again and I heartily encourage others to do it as well.

My campaign was documented along with several other independent mayoral candidates by filmmaker Raul Alvarez and producer Cassandra Hohn. Now that the election is over the film will be forthcoming, so keep an eye out for that. If you would like more information about my campaign feel free to contact me at info@blogparty.org

Thanks!

Andy Horwitz