Wu is a most unlikely candidate for lieutenant governor, running against a former one-term congresswoman named Kathy Hochul who's vying for the Democratic ticket alongside big-name gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo. Wu is upset his opponents won't even acknowledge that he exists. As the man who invented the notion of net neutrality, a concept that seeks to give everyone equal access to the power of the internet, Wu is an idealist, and he wants to argue the issues head-on. But that's not happening.

Both Wu and Hochul were invited to a debate last Wednesday at NY1, a New York all-news cable station, and Hochul didn't show. "One of the codes of their campaign is they never even mention my name," Wu says.