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Game developer to run for Congress in 2018
By adamg on Wed, 12/21/2016 - 9:38am
Updated, 3:10 p.m.
Brianna Wu, best known as a Boston-area game developer who has been fighting Gamergate basement boys for several years, reports she will run for Congress in the 2018 Democratic primary.
Wu isn't saying which incumbent she will take on, but said it won't be against 5th District Rep. Katherine Clark, who has also suffered online harassment:
I would never run against Clark. She's a fantastic representative to women all though this state, and someone I deeply respect
Wu did have harsh words for 8th District Rep. Stephen Lynch:
Pretty much ANYONE would be better on women's issues than Lynch. A random person on street, my dog - a kid at local kindergarten.
It's just amazing to me that he considers himself a Democrat. He has the same views on women that people back in Mississippi did.
She talked to VentureBeat about her platform, including:
The other reason I’m running is because I’m ready for a bolder Democratic Party. I didn’t personally support Sanders in the primary, but he tapped into a very powerful disconnect between our party’s leadership and our base. We want leaders that will fight for us, and all too often the Democrats don’t stand up to the fringe extreme of the Republican Party. I’ve been called a lot of names over my career, but I’ve never been told I’m scared of a fight.
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Comments
[Crosses fingers]
Please be Stephen Lynch.
(I have no idea if she'd be a good candidate, but someone should run against him.)
Lynch would make more sense
But last I heard, she lived in Clark's district. I remember that all coming out when Clark was working on Cyberbullying legislation and got SWAT-ed. It's too bad because Clark has actually been at the forefront of the issues that Wu is pushing, in part due to her being a constituent.
That said, she could always move & the Constitution only specifies you have to live in the same state you'd represent.
Conflicted
I like Katherine Clark but would love to see someone like Wu in congress. Come to think of it, I'd much rather vote for her over Warren -- Wu would be more likely to focus on issues I care about and not get bogged down by name calling.
Sure. That makes sense.
Let us put in office another unqualified person.
Ummm
What makes Wu unqualified? Seems like she understands a whole lot more about the modern economy than about 98 other Senators.
Really, now?
What makes her unqualified? Um, that she is absolutely no experience holding any sort of office other than the one she rants from.
Code words for
"I don't like her and you can't make me actually look into her background and notice what her qualifications are"?
Or, more simply "because female ... and Asian"?
Both are post-fact world behavior. Pretending otherwise is also post-fact world behavior.
Oh, Swirlls...
drop the grrlpower sword. You are so far afield, never mind insinuating that I am a racist (which I am not), that I am not even going to entertain you with continuing on with a dialogue.
Why don't you post all her sourced qualifications on why she would be a good congresswoman and I will review and perhaps change my mind.
You said that she was unqualified
It is your job to provide the evidence, not mine.
Nice try, though:
Yay for Brianna and the district she runs in.
Most of the votes I cast for office on Election Day were for the incumbent unopposed in the primary and/or the general. It's good Brianna Wu is running for office.
She's aiming high but so did Seth Moulton and Elizabeth Warren. She's has some experience as is noted below. What's more she was a successful game developer unlike Sen Warren's possible opponent.
Even if her effort does not succeed, she'll likely move the incumbent's politics in a way that makes him/her better aligned with the district.
Lynch's last primary opponent moved him to the left of reproductive rights. Yesterday, he made some noise about defending Planned Parenthood. He didn't say how but he said he intended to. Good for Lynchie. Good for low-income people who get reproductive health services at planned parenthood.
She isn't Asian
Took her husband's last name.
It's Wu!
I understand the confusion:
I go around yelling Wu Tang! and people think I'm Shaolin. It's crazy.
um, swirl...
By calling someone's statement 'code words' and totally making up something that you want it to mean doesn't make it true.
For instance, nobody here said, ""I don't like her and you can't make me actually look into her background and notice what her qualifications are"?
They said, "What makes her unqualified? Um, that she is absolutely no experience holding any sort of office other than the one she rants from."
So, they never said they don't like her. They were questioning her experience. Oh, I'm not sure of her race or nationality. But you are.
DMC Boston
One and the same?
https://www.dmcinfo.com/contact/dmc-boston
er...
...she doesn't look like her recent heritage hails from Asia. Her bio says she was born in West Virginia and adopted into a Conservative, Christian family in Mississippi. She looks pretty white in her pictures, but that's not to say that she might not identify as Asian. But as she says in her bio, "By 2007, Wu was living Colorado and met her husband-to-be Frank Wu." so it's her married name.
So I can get why you might be ready to go to war against people who would denigrate a potential candidate who is a female and has an Asian last name and who has been attacked in the past by on-line miscreants, but please take your own advice and get out of post-fact world behavior. It undercuts any point you're trying to make. It wasn't tough to find these facts out. I mean even I was able to!
Show me some facts
And I will.
Otherwise, what I see is the standard litany launched against a female candidate. Particularly when said launchers 1) offer no evidence to support their positions and, 2) impugn a sitting senator who has extensive political experience.
Facts?
That she does or doesn't identify as Asian??
No doubt there are some people here who have posted on the basis of not liking any female candidate - but re-reading this thread I see more positive things about Wu and Clarke than negative. And then you jump in complaining about people being against an Asian female candidate -- which she isn't. But everyone else is wrong. Swirly....grow up.
What makes one qualified
The North Shore elected Seth Moulton a few years back, and it was the first office he ran for (albeit he won on his second go round.)
One cannot have experience holding elected office until one holds elected office, so it's a chicken and egg thing. People have run for the Congress and the Presidency without having held elected office, so who cares? Well, this is not to say one can hold her inexperience against her, but if she lays out a strong case, she may earn the office yet.
Could you tell me WHO is more
Could you tell me WHO is more qualified to drafts laws on cyber-bullying and revenge porn?
Who can understand the cyber threats our government and businesses are facing?
How does government regulations impact a small business?
Who can help startups thrive in Massachusetts? (Which is a major source of jobs not GE!)
Did you know she studied journalism and political science?
That she worked as a political fundraiser?
Oh, my.
And I studied government and philosophy...does not make me any more qualified to run for Congress than her.
And drafting laws? Well, as far as I can find out, she is not a lawyer, so I would say that she is pretty unqualified for that, also.
Here's a suggestion
You hate her. That's all.
Perhaps you could tell us what your "ideal" candidate would look like? And what qualifications they would have?
And if such a person exists? It would make it easier to not write you off as a knee-jerk bigot.
lol
god damn you are just going down the toilet lately arent you
i'd say good luck with that but we both know i dont care what happens to you
Jesus Christ your mindset and
Jesus Christ your mindset and people that share it with you are insufferable. So it's that cut and dry, that they HATE her? Based on your interpenetration of 2 lines of text on the internet? You are just as bad as the jackasses on the right that "knee jerk bigot" themselves against any idea they perceive as liberal, PC, or against their convoluted view of patriotic.
Questioning someones qualifications and experience for an office IS NOT EQUAL TO HATING THEM. Stop you arrogant strawman high horse arguments. Not everyone is an anti SJW cis hating woman beating scumbag. You sound like Fox news took over Jezebel.
Plenty of people have degrees, or professional accolades, or business successes that mean in no way that they are qualified to run for office. Plenty of people have none of the above and would be great in public service. Questioning these things on either side of the coin is not an indication of bigotry no matter hard you try and make it so.
Haven't we elected enough unqualified people into office this year? Maybe we could stop talking in such aggressive and dividing tones. Or should I just say "You don't support Curt Shilling's run for office? YOU HATE ALL MEN. WHY ARE YOU SEXIST?" I consider it a civic duty to scrutinize people running for office regardless of race, gender, or creed in hopes of keeping the idiots and unqualified from making decisions on my behalf.
Amen, ninjers!
Well said! Late entry for comment of the year in my opinion.
uhhhh bro
it is spelled "Schilling"
"Stop you arrogant"
also i believe you meant 'your arrogant' ???????? either way these two errors have just invalidated your ENTIRE point. ughhh
uhhhh bro
it is spelled "Schilling"
"Stop you arrogant"
also i believe you meant 'your arrogant' ???????? either way these two errors have just invalidated your ENTIRE point. ughhh
OooOoooooOooohhh a post so nice i made it twice!!
ugh
ugh double posting, pretty much nulls your entire point. and you don't even use proper capitalization either, your position is INVALID
ugh
ugh double posting, pretty much nulls your entire point. and you don't even use proper capitalization either, your position is INVALID
Well
Given that Trump and all the people he's appointed also have no prior goverment experience I guess we're going to see what happens when you give someone a leadership position they (in your mind) are not qualified for.
Did your school have Civics?
You do not need a law degree to serve...
"Try to imagine a nation with no laws. That's what the United States might be like without Congress. Congress is the legislative, or lawmaking, branch of our national government."
(For grades 3-5)
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/what-does-congress-do
Which one of these would you disqualify for not being a lawyer? Maybe the farmers? The comedian? The insurance agents? The wine makers? I know the rodeo announcer! Perhaps she might work with the OTHER software company executives?
A closer look at the prior occupations and previously held public offices of Members of the House and Senate at the beginning of the 114th Congress, as listed in their CQ Roll Call Member Profiles,shows the following:
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43869.pdf
and a partridge in a pear tree.
Elected officials do have staff, btw, regardless of gender or previous "political" experience.
Personally, I don't want
Personally, I don't want anyone qualified to draft laws on cyberbullying, because I don't want any laws on cyberbullying. I hope she does not get elected.
i will admit
i'm not really even sure how it works. i always assumed that things that would get you in trouble via phone call/postal correspondence/in person, et cetera, would also apply to ~*cyber*~
I think ranting and calling people names on the internet counts
Sure is a lot of that going on on UHub lately.
It is not.
It is not.
This is a good article.
http://www.elle.com/culture/tech/a37728/katherine-clark-harassment-abuse...
There's no such thing as the alt-right
Nazis.
They are literal, factual, actual Nazis.
Godwin's Law doesn't apply if one of the parties in this argument are, in fact and truth, NAZIS.
"She fought the Nazis and won." Hell, "she fought the fascists and won." In allowing these people to call themselves the 'alt-right,' we're letting them win.
Please do not refer to the alt-right as Nazis.
Those guys look like boy scouts to the Nazis and/or the Nazi Party. More appropriate to say that possible some of the alt-right may have fascist tenancies.
Fine, fine, neo-Nazis
They're neo-Nazis who want to establish a WASP America. "Neo-Nazi" has long been a perfectly, um, fine, phrase for the sort of people who do Nazi salutes and call for the removal of tens of millions of Americans to satisfy their racial-purity fetishes.
Small thing
She can't run next year. The elections are in 2 years (minus a few months, but 2018, not 2017, which is next year.)
Good luck to her, though.
Fixed
I guess I already thought it was 2017 :-).
Wu who?
Not a gamer, so I only vaguely recall this case with the misogynistic basement boys threatening her and such. Just checked out her page and she does seem to be quite the talented and accomplished go-getter (in terms of entrepreneurship and such). There's actually not much there that motivates me to vote for her. She's got a whole lot of ego and ovaries, which you need in politics, but you also need a reason that you're getting into politics that a voter can relate to, other than it's another mountain for you to climb.
That being said, it would be great to have someone in govt that would champion a lot of the civil liberties issues that come up in the technology/Internet realm. Considering half the Congress probably first encountered computers via punch-cards and still refer to them as "the machine" getting someone far more steeped in it all would be good for a change.
Don't know if she still lives in Clark's district (she probably has a good reason to keep her home address a bit under wraps) - but hope that she gives someone else the primary challenge. Clark is doing well and doesn't need the stab in the ass, whereas Capuano, Lynch and Keating could all use it. Can't imagine that she'll unseat anyone, but then again after 2016, who the fuck knows.
Her slogan is She fought the
Her slogan is She fought the alt-right and won. What is that all about? Alt-right has only been a thing since maybe six months ago, and their record is 1-0.
Just because you can't Google something ...
Doesn't mean it didn't exist before you allegedly first heard of it. "Alt right" has been a euphemistic synonym for neo-Nazi white nationalism since 2009.
I didn’t personally support
I didn’t personally support Sanders in the primary, but he tapped into a very powerful disconnect between our party’s leadership and our base. We want leaders that will fight for us, and all too often the Democrats don’t stand up to the fringe extreme of the Republican Party. I’ve been called a lot of names over my career, but I’ve never been told I’m scared of a fight.
That is the most confusing thing I've read all week. She says we need a leader like Bernie Sanders, but she supported somebody-else (maybe Clinton)? And she promises to be a candidate like Bernie Sanders.
yup
Keeping in mind her first foray into politics (at 23) was heading off to DC with no job, no prospects, just a desire to go work for the GOP because of the values that clicked with her that she saw on Fox News. She later campaigned for Kerry.
It's great to evolve. It's not great to be political silly-putty.
State Legislature?
Why doesn't she start with a run for state rep or senator? Why do people with relatively elevated profiles believe they can jump right into a tough fight for a federal seat with no experience? People on here are always complaining about our local politicians, but very few serious people run for those offices. The state legislature has an important constitutional function and it could be so much more powerful if people as motivated as Brianna Wu participated in it.
I applaud her ideas and courage, but she's going to face a brick wall in 2018. It is not a year the Democratic Party will support primary-ing a stable democratic seat occupied by a known quantity. Stephen Lynch is indeed her easiest target, but his district skews a little more right (not Right) than the other districts she close to. It's so likely that she will lose in a primary when she could handily win a state legislature seat.
I guess my feeling is: great candidate, would like to see her win, totally doable on a state level.
"Why doesn't she start with a
"Why doesn't she start with a run for state rep or senator? Why do people with relatively elevated profiles believe they can jump right into a tough fight for a federal seat with no experience? "
Well, it worked for the president elect.
Alt-Right as Neo-Nazis? Keep it up!
Goodwin's law definitely applies. Equating America-first conservatives to Nazi's is absurd and will again be rejected by the voters. Please keep it up! By showing how delusional many on the left are, it only encourages Republicans and sane Independents to vote Republican, as shown by Trump's landslide win and Republican control of the House, Senate and most State Houses. Wu has no chance to topple an incumbent by the way. Congressman Ryan is correct, time for a change in liberal land.
Umm, many of the so called
Umm, many of the so called "alt right" will proudly tell you they are racist, anti-semitic, anti-muslim and want America to be 100% white. They are proud of this fact. Many of them identify themselves using such terms in their Twitter bios.
Links please?
Links please?
Here's a starting point
ADL on the alt right.
I know, wacky, what would a bunch of Jews know about racists and white supremacists, it's not like they have any experience with either, right?
you're correct
and most people and palestine would agree with you
Not District 5
My guess is going to be 7,
My guess is going to be 7, since while I do think she lived in District 5, she is close to the border of 7 and 4.
My guess would be 8
Given what she's saying about Steve Lynch and how he's as close to a Republican as we get around here. I've updated my original post with her comments about Lynch (as somebody else in the discussion has already noted, you don't legally have to live in a congressional district in your state to run in it).
Fact check needed.
All I know is that PAX East has an annual convention here and it is huge. Is the game industry in Boston really on the rocks?
Convention != local
Since many of the exhibitors travel, it's not really a reflection of Boston's local game industry, just the game industry as a whole.
i mean
we have annual boat shows too but i dont think we're building a lot of boats
With the demographics of the Lynch
District it makes sense for him to pray she's the opponent.
It's obvious that several
It's obvious that several posters here don't like Lynch but he is a good fit with his district, which is more moderate than most others. He is enormously popular in the 8th for a reason. Her best chance would be in the 7th, which is very progressive and might be open to her candidacy. Good luck to her.
Sounds perfect!
No relevant experience, no platform to speak of ...
"Wu isn't saying which incumbent she will take on, but said it won't be against 5th District Rep. Katherine Clark ..."
and apparently a carpetbagger, too.
**** EDIT: So I guess I didn't remember you don't have to be a resident of a district in order to run / be a US Representative. My mistake. I guess I was thinking of State Rep, LLOLL.