Welcome to the new website! As you may have already heard, I announced today that I am running for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate against Kirsten Gillibrand in 2010. I want to say a few words about why I decided to run:

I believe New York voters deserve a choice. We live in a democracy, and elections should be about addressing the issues, not about party insiders "clearing the field" for a favored candidate. If party insiders had “cleared the field” in 2008, Barack Obama would not be president today.

New York—and the nation—are at a critical point. We are living through the most unprecedented financial crisis in our lifetime—and, at the same time, I see a great opportunity to change the country. There are great choices to be made—whether and how we will unburden Americans and businesses from the crushing costs of obscene health care costs, whether workers will truly share in the great productivity they have created over the past three decades, whether workers will have the right to join a union, and whether we will live up to the promise of “equal justice under the law” by granting marriage equality throughout the land.

I am the only progressive in the race. And I believe, as as I hope you do, that we have a chance to move the Democratic Party in a progressive direction. New Yorkers will have a very clear choice in 2010—a choice of values and principles.

They will be able to choose either someone who put their children and families at great risk by advocating for and taking the money of Big Tobacco (work she has just recently said she does not regret), someone who has embraced the National Rifle Association, one of the most extreme organizations in the country which has worked tirelessly to defeat Democrats, and someone who is awash in corporate cash.

Or they will have a chance to build a progressive movement that will give the power back to the people and make a better world.

In the great tradition of people like Paul Wellstone, I have worked my entire adult life for the cause of economic justice and civil rights so that we—our family, our children and our friends—can live in a healthy, safe, and morally just society.

-- Jonathan Tasini