June 13
Pirates, thank you.
Something I want to echo from my media statement is what an honor it has been to participate in our American democracy, especially during the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding. I also want to acknowledge what a privilege it has been to participate in that process as a Pirate.
My wife and I were talking about how close this race was, and she said something that has stuck with me: “If you had changed your party, you probably could have won, but that wouldn’t have been you.”
Regardless of the outcome, I am proud that I am still me. Authentically me. Authentically a Pirate.
This campaign changed me. Over the last year I experienced things I never expected to experience. I received death threats. I was followed. People harassed my coworkers at my office. In February, someone drove past my home and discharged a firearm 10 times. I was sent threatening letters, and received vague, threatening emails from someone presenting themselves as an impartial journalist while acknowledging ties to an opponent’s campaign. I was ridiculed for being a Pirate and ridiculed for criticizing ALPRs and other surveillance technology. I was threatened and intimidated because I wanted to do something that is apparently revolutionary: put people first.
Experiences like those help explain why some people become cynical, apathetic, or withdrawn from public life. They do not excuse it, but they help explain it.
Despite all of that, I am still me. And, I am still a Pirate.
Am I more confident? Yes.
Am I less tolerant of corruption, dishonesty, and cruelty? Absolutely.
Have I grown and changed? Of course.
But I am still the same man who entered this race last June.
That said, I want to acknowledge something many people have already asked me about. I will not be running for office again.
I have no interest in becoming a perennial candidate. This campaign demanded an extraordinary amount of time, energy, and sacrifice, and I would like to move on into the next chapter of my life.
But the work does not end here.
One of the things I am most excited about is continuing the development of Cutlass Maps and the other campaign tools we have built. For far too long, access to common and important campaign infrastructure and tools has been concentrated in the hands of the two major parties. We built tools that gave us parity with organizations that have existed for generations, and I have no intention of gatekeeping those resources the way they have often been gatekept from us.
Instead, I want to help other third-party and independent candidates succeed, especially our Pirate candidates.
That means improving Cutlass Maps. It means creating candidate training materials. It means sharing lessons learned. It means helping future Pirate candidates run professional, competitive campaigns from day one.
And that brings me to what I am most proud of.
This race was fought against a well established incumbent with over $45,000 available at the last reporting period, dozens of serious endorsements, and another candidate who enjoyed the support and infrastructure of a major political party. We had neither advantage.
What we had was a small team, a lot of determination, and a belief that ordinary people deserve a voice.
We were outspent. We were underestimated. We were told what was possible and what wasn’t.
Yet this race remained close enough that it took days before a concession was appropriate.
We did that with roughly $13,000. We did it as Pirates. We did it as members of what Washoe County calls an, “other,” party.
We earned the attention of our community. We earned the attention of both major political parties. More importantly, we proved that people are willing to listen when someone offers them an alternative to, “the lesser of two evils.”
To the best of my knowledge, I am the first Pirate candidate to run for office in Nevada.
If this is what one Pirate candidate can accomplish on a first attempt, imagine what becomes possible when the next candidate starts with better tools, better training, and a stronger foundation than we had.
This campaign may have ended in defeat, but it also demonstrated something that had never been done before in Nevada. It demonstrated that Pirates can run serious campaigns, compete seriously, and be taken seriously.
That matters.
So while today is a loss for this campaign and me personally, I believe it is a victory for our community, a victory for our party, and a victory for everyone who wants to challenge the idea that only the major parties deserve a seat at the table.
None of this would have been possible without the Pirate Party, without my family, without my team, and without every volunteer, donor, supporter, friend, and neighbor who believed in what we were trying to accomplish.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Don’t give up the ship,
Hunter Rand
Read the letter from Hunter Rand to the Pirate Party here for the official release.
uspirates.org/a-letter-from-pi…
Florian Lancker
in reply to netzpolitik.org • • •berlinbonsai
in reply to netzpolitik.org • • •Philipp Falk
in reply to netzpolitik.org • • •