
Lawrence Lessig: I’m Trying to Run for President, but the Democrats Won’t Let Me - boh
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/lessig-lawrence-democrats-debate-2016-213215
======
jacobolus
Larry Lessig is a smart guy, and I appreciate his activism about copyright,
etc., but he is not a serious presidential candidate. You can’t just decide to
run for president on a whim with no connections or support and hope to have
one of the major political parties welcome you with open arms.

It’s cute that he wants to promote his message by using Democratic primary
debates as a media platform, but also entirely understandable that they aren’t
going to let him. Everyone at the DNC is busy in the middle of campaign
season, and from their perspective he’s basically wasting their time.

 _“But unlike Clinton and Sanders and O’Malley, I’m willing to tell America
the truth about these urgent and important needs. [...] That truth doesn’t
play well in D.C. The consultants think it’s a downer. They fear downers don’t
win votes.”_

Give me a break.

~~~
qrendel
So it's up to the inner circle of the DNC to decide which candidates aren't a
"waste of time"? I thought that was up to the primary voters.

The worst that could be said is that perhaps a one-issue candidate isn't a
viable contender for the presidency, but that should be up to the voters, not
up to a small group of political insiders to decide who our choices for the
nomination are. That's kind of the idea behind his entire campaign.

~~~
jacobolus
No, it’s not only “up to the inner circle”, but if you’re going to seriously
run for president, you need to spend years building a credible campaign, and
demonstrate (e.g. to qualified campaign staffers, grassroots organizers,
donors, key party constituent institutions, the news media, etc.) that you
know what you’re doing and have a chance. Most of the above groups are risk
averse, so this is a non-trivial project. People who succeed at it spend a
large chunk of their career on the process.

The “easy” way to build up the understanding and support to play this game is
to get elected to some lower office, and spend years working within the
system, raising money, working with other elected officials, getting to know
all the key players. That is to say, you have to engage with the process and
earn some credibility before the process engages with you. There are other
ways to earn that kind of respect/attention as an outsider, but they are
equally long-term and difficult. (Alternately, if you are a billionaire like
Donald Trump, or have some billionaire buddies, you can run from outside
purely on money and media attention, for better or worse. But that’s also not
what’s happening here.)

Lessig’s op-ed here comes across sort of like the complaints of an antisocial
shut-in who went to a club one time and was upset that nobody would dance with
him. “They just dance with those other guys because they don’t want to hear
the truth.”

~~~
qrendel
Keeping Lessig out is serving the interests of the political elite though and
(again) is a reflection on the interests of the DNC, part of what Lessig's
entire spiel is. The issue isn't that he can't raise enough money to start a
campaign, or that he probably wouldn't win in the end, it's that he's not
given equal consideration by being kept out of the debates and given only
token speaking time at the convention.

I can certainly understand the rational self-interest for them in doing so
(i.e. controlling the image of the democratic party, giving Hillary a better
chance in the general election through more speaking time now, less chance of
his hurting another runner's campaign by doing well in a debate), but that
doesn't mean it's good for the democratic process - it's just another way of
controlling it so that people are only allowed to vote on a couple of pre-
approved candidates who barely differ in any meaningful way.

~~~
jacobolus
Nobody is “keeping Lessig out” of getting involved in the political system.
He’s just trying to do an end-run around the standard process (or more
realistically, just wants a platform for his message and has no intention of
becoming president), and the DNC thinks it’s a waste of their time to humor
him.

Last year he pulled his “Mayday PAC” stunt which spent $10M or whatever mostly
raised from a bunch of silicon valley VCs, and basically accomplished nothing.

Another analogy: This is sort of a similar circumstance to people with no
connection to the mainstream scientific community who are convinced they have
invented a perpetual motion machine or developed a Theory of Everything or
proved P=NP (or whatever), but then don’t get time or attention from
mainstream scientists. Occasionally they turn out to be neglected geniuses
whose work is rediscovered decades later, but most of the time not.

The DNC has a limited amount of resources, their debates have a limited amount
of time, and there’s no advantage for the DNC or the Democratic party in
general in letting anyone who can raise $1M get on their debate stage, and
significant risk in letting someone like Lessig in to grandstand about how
“corrupt” or “untruthful” their other candidates are.

There are some other candidates who are also not serious contenders at this
point (Webb, Chafee, perhaps O’Malley), and letting them into the debates is
also sort of pointless, but they are career politicians with some skin in the
game who can at least be trusted not to cause a scene.

------
alexandercrohde
\-- A “democracy” in which 400 families give 50 percent of the money in
campaigns is not American democracy.

That's a really compelling statistic if true. I wish there was a source for
it. Anybody know more?

~~~
nkurz
Perhaps try Google for that phrase?

[https://www.google.com/search?q=A+“democracy”+in+which+400+f...](https://www.google.com/search?q=A+“democracy”+in+which+400+families+give+50+percent+of+the+money+in+campaigns+is+not+American+democracy)

The first hit for me is the Larry Lessig piece, but the second two have lots
of background information on the source of the statistics:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/small-pool-of-rich-
dono...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/small-pool-of-rich-donors-
dominates-election-giving.html)

[http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-04/american-
oligarchy-...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-04/american-
oligarchy-400-families-represent-50-money-raised-2016-presidential-candidat)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/small-pool-of-rich-
dono...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/small-pool-of-rich-donors-
dominates-election-giving.html)

(Yes, I intend this to be slightly snarky in a behavior changing manner. It's
wonderful to wonder about sources for statistics, but seems lazy to ask the
question seemingly without doing any basic research. Contrast the utility to
the group of the bare question versus a post that included some links with the
answers from the start.)

~~~
alexandercrohde
kinda ad-hominem. I disagree with the approach that somehow advancing the
discussion a half-step by calling attention to an important piece of the
article (rather than taking the full step of going on to research it) is
unproductive or should be called out.

~~~
nkurz
I agree, calling attention to the statistic is probably better than no mention
at all. But I think the site is better with citations, and it does strike me
as lazy to ask others rather than providing for others. I don't mean to be too
mean about it, but I am confused by the approach. As in, would the site be
better or worse if everyone took the same approach?

------
kazinator
Slight irony?

> _My platform is simple: end the corrupting influence of money in Washington
> ... not formally welcomed me into the race—despite my raising money at a
> faster pace than more than half the pack_

:)

