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.”
Well, he's a known name in political circles, he raised a non-trivial amount of money for the purpose of running a campaign, and he's a more serious candidate for president than several others whose names are much more out there.
Given how corrupt and paid-off Debbie Schultz is, and how the DNC punishes Democratic candidates for participating in unsanctioned debates (!) I think he has a right to be angry.
Not to mention, his point is spot on. the country won't chaneg without campaign finance and electoral reform.
EDIT: Just to cite:
“We’re not changing the process. We’re having six debates,” said Wasserman Schultz, who has been under fire from several Democratic presidential candidates over the debates. “The candidates will be uninvited from subsequent debates if they accept an invitation to anything outside of the six sanctioned debates.”
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.
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.
Yes, the purpose of a political party is to further the goals of the leadership of that party. The party has concluded (likely correctly) that including Lessig in their debates will not further their agenda. It seems strangely naive (or possibly disingenuous) for Lessig to suggest that there is something unexpected about this.
The point is that if voters would otherwise support someone, but they can't run because an inner circle of political elites won't let them, then those people are an obstruction to democracy (slash representative republic). They aren't doing us all a favor by serving as gatekeepers to which platforms we get to support. It's also representative of their opinion of Lessig's views and platforms, which isn't a positive reflection on them, imo.
This is also just the nomination, not having him compete as a second candidate in the general election, so whoever would likely beat him would likely still go on to win the nomination. Keeping him out only directly serves to silence him; it's not like Bernie would end up beating out Clinton for the nomination as a result of letting Lessig run alongside them.
The point is that if voters would otherwise support someone, but they can't run because an inner circle of political elites won't let them, then those people are an obstruction to democracy
I think we agree. I'm just pointing out that this is not a problem with this specific decision by the Democratic party, but an inherent problem with any system that allows a small number of powerful political parties to act as the gatekeepers deciding who can appear on the ballot. This is the system we have, and it is an impediment to democracy.
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.”
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.
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.
(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.)
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.
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?
> 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
16 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 63.8 ms ] threadIt’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.
Given how corrupt and paid-off Debbie Schultz is, and how the DNC punishes Democratic candidates for participating in unsanctioned debates (!) I think he has a right to be angry.
Not to mention, his point is spot on. the country won't chaneg without campaign finance and electoral reform.
EDIT: Just to cite:
“We’re not changing the process. We’re having six debates,” said Wasserman Schultz, who has been under fire from several Democratic presidential candidates over the debates. “The candidates will be uninvited from subsequent debates if they accept an invitation to anything outside of the six sanctioned debates.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/25319...
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.
Yes, the purpose of a political party is to further the goals of the leadership of that party. The party has concluded (likely correctly) that including Lessig in their debates will not further their agenda. It seems strangely naive (or possibly disingenuous) for Lessig to suggest that there is something unexpected about this.
This is also just the nomination, not having him compete as a second candidate in the general election, so whoever would likely beat him would likely still go on to win the nomination. Keeping him out only directly serves to silence him; it's not like Bernie would end up beating out Clinton for the nomination as a result of letting Lessig run alongside them.
I think we agree. I'm just pointing out that this is not a problem with this specific decision by the Democratic party, but an inherent problem with any system that allows a small number of powerful political parties to act as the gatekeepers deciding who can appear on the ballot. This is the system we have, and it is an impediment to democracy.
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.”
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.
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.
That's a really compelling statistic if true. I wish there was a source for it. Anybody know more?
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/small-pool-of-rich-dono...
https://www.google.com/search?q=A+“democracy”+in+which+400+f...
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.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-04/american-oligarchy-...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/small-pool-of-rich-dono...
(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.)
> 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
:)