Larry withdrew from the race today saying the DNC had excluded him from any debates with a new rule. That rule said that at least one person must have heard of the candidate and cared whether or not he was in the debate. Lessig failed to meet that threshold.
This ends a long arduous campaign for Lessig that included some highlights such as being less well known than Lincoln Chaffee and a stealth campaign that was so successful it received no coverage what-so-ever.
We will miss this man, his lack of presence, his unknown agenda, his tireless insignificance, are not likely to seen in American politics again for at least the next four years.
I know who Lessig is, but mainly because my Ethics professor in college loved him and we had to read one of his books.
He’s a smart, interesting guy, but he’s in no way a politician. I’m kinda surprised he even bothered to run - he had to know he wouldn’t even get enough interest to get some of his issues as part of the platform.
My biggest feeling on it is “at least now the wikipedia page will reflect reality instead of including never-wills in the democratic candidate list”.
boohoo. Honestly, the DNC has to stop these clowns like Lessig and Chafee from getting in the first place. With Bernie, I do think its smart to have a primary that looks contested so that the media doesn’t go about saying “its not democratic.” Sometimes, you have to go thru motions.
Chafee is at least a politician with some record of success. Less of is s very smart man, but there’s no reason to ever have treated him as a serious candidate for the Democratic Party. Had he been serious about running, he should have formed his own party.
The idea is that he would be nominated by the Dems, elected in November, pass campaign finance reform, then resign.
Why would a Republican want to vote for somebody like that? Why would a swing voter? Campaign finance reform is important, sure, but there’s no evidence that it motivates people to grab pitchforks and vote against their interest or even break up their apathy.
Also, why would a Republican Congress decide to pass meaningful campaign finance reform just because a referendum President has been elected? In short, what the heck was he going on about?
I say that if you want to tilt at windmills, hammer out a constitutional amendment and make sure you get groups ranging from the Sierra Club to the Tea Party on board.
I disagree. Anyone should be able to run for President.
But running should be seen as a winnowing process. There are Bernie Sanders who catch on with the public and there are Lawrence Lessigs who do not. The role of the parties is to kick out the candidates who aren’t making it not provide them with artificial support.
Why would a Democrat? A guy pledging to spend every bit of political capital on an esoteric election reform law* that will have a high likelihood of being overturned by a hostile court, after which we will get some random guy as president (identity to be revealed later!) is not someone I would consider voting for in the Democratic primary.
*Which includes dumb ideas like “make election day a national holiday.” The number of people who aren’t voting because election day is inconvenient is very small, and that problem can be solved with flipping postage stamps. But yeah, confiscate 1/365 of the economy because you’re too lazy to send people a postage-paid envelope.
Anyone should be able to run for president, sure, by trying to seek the nomination of an established party, starting a new party, or as an independent. But parties should be able to control who runs as their nominees.
What sorts of rules should each party have to limit what sort of people declare their candidacy for their respective nominations? What harm does it do to the party or its nominating process if some nobody throws his/her hat into the ring, but draws no notice, isn’t invited to any debates, and goes nowhere?
The informal standard for inclusion in debates has long seemed to be: if you’re drawing noticeable support, or have held high office (usually senator or governor), or both, you’ll get invited. That’s the point where a degree of gatekeeping takes place, and it seems to be the right place for it.
Webb and Chafee, as well as the three remaining candidates, met that standard. Lessig didn’t: he had never held significant political office, and had no following. That kept him out of the debates, as it should have, even though he bitched about that. He didn’t get to share a stage with Hillary and Bernie just because he’d decided to run. It doesn’t work like that. If he’d been able to gain nontrivial support from potential primary voters, then he would have been included, as Trump, Carson, and Fiorina have been on the GOP side.
I blame the SDMB! This board is my major news source, but I never even heard of the guy. :eek: I think his campaign idea was great! (Of course I’d also root for Don Quixote as well.)
He had a really terrible strategy, though. He ran on the platform of not actually wanting to be President, staying in only long enough to pass new campaign finance laws, and then resigning.