.@lessig ends his bid for the Democratic nomination, blaming the DNC for changing debate rules. https://t.co/Mob6aEjDYn
— Dan Merica (@danmericaCNN) November 2, 2015
Per Politico:
Harvard University professor Lawrence Lessig abandoned his Democratic presidential run on Monday, capping a candidacy that failed to get any real traction at all.
Lessig, an outspoken academic who had been a vocal proponent of campaign finance reform, said he was dropping his bid for the White House in a YouTube video.
The Harvard academic didn’t raise a notable amount of money and failed even to get into the Democratic presidential debates. He acknowledged as much in his announcement…
I watched the video. Unless you enjoy whiny self-justification, or need a sleep aid, I wouldn’t bother.
Professor Lessig has chosen a most worthy and important issue, and if he’d had the smarts to aim his doomed candidacy at the Republican party — which even he acknowledges is the source of the big-money rot and its greatest enabler by a huge factor — I’d have had more sympathy for the man. As it is, he’s just the Goo-Goo cherry on our Second Gilded Age’s shit sundae, a high-minded bludgeon aimed at exactly the wrong target.
It's fun to watch Lessig proclaim the death of American democracy while the candidate with the $100 million super PAC plummets in the polls.
— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) November 2, 2015
A Recommendation
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Lessig will be on the O’Donnell-less O’Donnell show. Slow news day, I guess.
ETA: Good God, the title of Jeb’s ebook really is “Reply All”? I thought that was snark
Mike J
Who cares about Lessig? Oscar Levant is on the Merv Griffin show.
ThresherK (GPad)
Did he release a video telling us he was in, or just the one that he was out?
Lessig is the one guy who could have upped his name recognition by dressing up as Lincoln Chafee for Halloween.
dmsilev
So much for following in Elizabeth Warren’s footsteps along the well-trodden Harvard-faculty-to-high-elected-office path.
dmsilev
I think my favorite bit was the “blaming DNC” part. Dude, your polling was well into the Jindal Zone. Nobody at the DNC would give two shits about you or go out of the way to change rules to screw with you.
Gin & Tonic
Out-of-fucks BHO makes fun of the GOP debate brouhaha.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I have a cold, but I still have to hand out sample ballots tomorrow for two hours. A lot of the offices up here in Virginia won’t have party labels on the ballot, so people will need to have those ballots when they go in. I hope it’s warm tomorrow.
Villago Delenda Est
Geeze, Larry (can I call you Larry? No? Well I will anyway!) are you sure you’re not actually a Republican? Because you sure are acting like a whiny-ass titty baby.
On the serious side, I hope Lessig does continue to raise issues that need to be addressed…he’s not wrong about that, he just seems to have no clue as to how to turn that into a viable campaign. In this regard he’s a lot like Piyush Jindal, except not as painfully publicly stupid about it.
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
I like no fucks to give President Obama. Of course I liked him before that, but this way is better.
Mike J
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): One think I like about all vote by mail here. I could look at the ballot, go on the web and research every race as I voted it. Funny to see the King County Democrats endorsing one candidate and the alt-weekly The Stranger endorsing the other. I know I won’t feel too terrible about those races going either way.
Cervantes
Can you remind me what his doomed candidacy was aimed at?
Gin & Tonic
The burden of being white and middle-aged in America. For reals.
Another Holocene Human
@dmsilev: It helps when people like you first. That, or you’re talking about things they care about.
Lessing confused the Ars Technica commentariat for the Democratic electorate. D’oh.
NotMax
Mayhaps the first-ever candidate to fulfill his campaign promise (to resign) before being elected.
Redshift
@dmsilev: And if I recall correctly, he (or a spokesman) complained about not being allowed into the debate, but when pressed, admitted they hadn’t even asked to be allowed in.
Pee Cee
Lessig’s out? Lemieux over at LGM is going to be depressed.
BruceFromOhio
@Gin & Tonic:
No context, so I’ll run with it. Yes, it hurts. It hurts to wake up. It hurts to take a dump, take out the trash, argue with your teen-ager, tolerate your shitty boss in your shitty job, sit in traffic, pay your bills, and the ten jillion other things you do everyday. Your problem is pain, yes, and the lack of endorphins because you read too much, know too much, think too much, and never have enough fun. If you can’t figure out a way to laugh, love, and fucking live instead of exist, then yes. It hurts. All the time.
Downward spiral, yo. No one cares that you are in pain, except you. Figure it the fuck out, and then do something about it. This way of life is changing, change with it or get the fuck off the bus already.
Amir Khalid
@Redshift:
Lessig didn’t take his own candidacy as seriously as he did his single issue, which was actually quite important. The party was quite right not to take him seriously. In the end he didn’t even manage to be a distraction. It’s still a better outcome for the Democratic party, which unlike its competition is not overrun by fringe candidates for president.
RaflW
He probably was a net negative for advancing the idea of campaign finance reform. He really had no idea how to pick a useful target and organize to make any difference. Bye bye.
Goblue72
@Gin & Tonic: If only there were an system of organizing the relationship between the private economy and the state that involved redistributionist governmental programs designed to provide a robust social welfare state? And if only there was a political candidate running for the nomination of one of the two major parties in the country who was trying to shift the political conversation in that direction? If only…
But please, somebody, somewhere, might have said something mean to Hillary Clinton. So let’s go argue about that and talk about whatever horse-race nonsense Jeb Bush/Donald Trump/Marco Boobio is doing today.
Ryan
Blaming the refs generally means you didn’t deserve to win.