Larry Lessig Reaches Funding Goal and Is Running For President

LetterRip writes: Lessig has met his funding goal of one million dollars, and thus is committed to run for President. ABC reports: "After exceeding his $1 million crowd-funding goal, Harvard Law School professor Larry Lessig announced today on “This Week” that he is running for president. 'I think I'm running to get people to acknowledge the elephant in the room,' he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. 'We have to recognize -- we have a government that does not work. The stalemate, partisan platform of American politics in Washington right now doesn't work.'”

Comments

He chose Democrat because reasons

[Schezar]

The original superpac was strictly non-partisan. However, it turned out that almost zero Republicans wanted anything to do with him, it, or campaign finance reform. So in practice, only Democrats supported the idea. The Republicans MAYDAY reached out to actively oppose campaign finance reform...

There really aren't viable candidates on the national stage outside of our two main parties. The vast majority of other parties are extreme fringe single-issue parties, and most of them are far right-wing or deeply religious. The only two parties that come even close to being worth mentioning are the Green Party and the Libertarian Party. The former can't get nationally elected, and the latter has caucused with the Republicans for over a decade now.

Re:He chose Democrat because reasons

[ScentCone]

The Republicans thought they would have the upper hand in the post Citizens United era.

No, they just thought it would be nice not to have their First Amendment rights infringed, that's all. And plenty of liberal-minded groups agreed with them. You don't give up your freedoms of speech and assembly based on the calendar, nor based on the manner in which you assemble. Large media operations were allowed to pursue candidate and issue advocacy while other groups were set up to become criminals for doing exactly the same thing. A plain and simple violation of the First Amendment, not to mention an obvious example of unequal protection under the law. A group that wanted to make and show a documentary about Hillary Clinton was being prevented from doing so during election season, while the New York Times or MSNBC could run special editions or one-hour specials aimed at her opponents? That sort of capricious BS is what the ruling was about, and well it should have been. McCain-Feingold was unconstitutional on the face of it.

Re:He chose Democrat because reasons

[ScentCone]

Want to explain to me why Democrats overwhelmingly opposed the ruling why Republicans supported it?

Because the majority of media outlets, which weren't impacted by McCain-Feingold's limitations on pre-election opinion broadcasting, are run by editorial boards and staff that skew left. The Democrats truly enjoyed that un-infringed support. Simple as that.

It's not that Republicans stood to gain by having their constitutional rights re-protected, it's that they stood to RE-gain something that had been taken away from them out of proportion, in political terms.

Re:How could it possibly "work" for 300M people?

[trout007]

The Nordic Countries are very Capitalist. There aren't too many state owned companies and the laws allow for a very unregulated, free, dynamic, and productive free market. This is coupled with a large welfare state backed by high taxes. So the state takes that tax money and distributes it out to the citzens in different forms of welfare.

France, Spain, Italy, etc have a more socialist system where the state actually owns and runs companies or regulates them so much they are effectivly state owned.

For example the Nordic countries (and Germany until recently) don't have a minimum wage. This allows the unions and employers and the market to set rates. This leads to very low unemployment. The Southern European countries all have high minum wages which causes high unemployment.

IMHO the Nordic countries have a better system because if you have more people working and producing your country is going to be much wealthier. Even if you have high taxes and redistribution.

Re:How could it possibly "work" for 300M people?

[trout007]

The main reason capitalism works the best is because companies are allowed to fail and new ones take their place. You let the market allocate resources to the private companies and individuals that make the best (most profitable) use of it. The Nordic countries let that process work and then just tax it to pay for the welfare state.

The problem with actual socialism (State ownership of the means of production) is that it is extremely wasteful and inefficient. Nobody has to do a better job because they are not in competition with anyone. It's Fed Ex vs the Post Office. If you go to Fed Ex and more than 2 people are in line they open another register. At the post office they go on break.

Re:Giving it the old "college try" eh?

[trenien]

Curious.

As I recall, Bush won the election after a massive amount of fraud gave him Florida and the Supreme Court decided they liked it that way.

And, of course, let's not talk about the 2004 elections...