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Larry Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign, Citing Unfair Debate Rules (washingtonpost.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Harvard law professor Larry Lessig is ending his run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Lessig blames the demise of his campaign on party rules that have left him "shut out" of the Democratic debates. "The party won't let me be a candidate," Lessig said in his final campaign video. "I can't ask people to support a campaign that I know can't get before the members of the Democratic Party."
Perhaps a single issue "I'm going to pass one law and then resign" candidate just isn't well aligned with the Democratic party platform? Just a thought.
HuffPo actually explains how the rules changed:
The DNC's rules for candidate participation in their debates were pretty straightforward--or so we thought. In August, before the Lessig campaign began, DNC Chair, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, announced the standards for being included in the debates. As she described the rule, a candidate had to have 1 percent in three DNC sanctioned national polls, "in the six weeks prior to the debate."
[...]
And indeed, that is precisely the rule that was applied in the first debate. As CNN specified in a late September memo, to qualify a candidate had to poll at 1 percent in the "polls released between August 1, 2015 and October 10, 2015." The first debate was October 12.
[...]
During that call, I was told that the DNC participation standard for the debates was for a candidate to be at one percent in three polls conducted, "six weeks prior to the debate"--not the clarified rule cited earlier by Wasserman-Shultz and the DNC political director that a candidate had to be at one percent in three polls conducted "in the six weeks prior to the debate."
So the DNC had said 1% in the six weeks before the debate and used that standard in the first debate, but in the second debate where Lessig qualified by that standard they switched to 6 weeks before the debate.
It seems odd even if you don't take the wording at face value and wonder about the missing upper bound in the range given by "six weeks before the debate".
I can see why the DNC doesn't want a candidate who is there almost explicitly as a one issue protest candidate but that's a fairly dirty way to go about it.
I stole this Sig
... and no one except his Mom and a few slashdot editors knows or cares.
That may change. For me, even just a few years ago, the corrupting influence of money in politics wasn't an issue that I'd ever really thought much about. There was a lot that I was angry about. But it was hard to make sense of it all.
The Iraq war never made any sense. If there was any country that should been held accountable for 9/11, it was Saudi Arabia. But somehow Saudi Arabia was our "friend". And then there was the housing/financial collapse followed by a long recession. Supposedly the Tea Party was all freaked out about the budget deficit but their solution was to advocate cutting taxes on the rich. Huh? If you're really concerned about budget deficits then you raise taxes - particularly on the people who can easily afford to pay more.
In his Gettysburg Address, which he probably wrote while he had smallpox, Abraham Lincoln talks about the USA having been founded to have a government of, by, and for the people. Now, at least until our robotic overlords take power, governments are always comprised of people. But what Abraham Lincoln meant was ordinary people - that the U.S.A was founded to be different than Europe, and most of the rest of the world, that was, at the time, governed by a small, mostly hereditary, ruling class living lives of frivolous luxury by exploiting everyone else. To me, one of the most egregious betrayals of the principles on which the USA was founded occurs at times when the USA is itself controlled by a small mostly hereditary ruling class and when the ruling class uses the US military to support brutal dictatorships in other countries because these dictatorships give money and other personal favors to members of the US ruling class - i.e. the "banana republic".
So why does a candidate like Hillary, who claims to be all about women's rights, have such a cozy relationship with Saudi Arabia? Obviously, follow the money. Like the Bushes, the Clintons have been given millions and millions of dollars by the Saudi ruling family. Do we want yet another president for the USA who deep in the pocket of brutal dictatorships like Suadi Arabia? Well, my personal answer is: Absolutely not!
There was a time when I didn't get it. But now, with Hillary running for president, and likely to receive the democratic nomination. Lessig's message about the corrupting influence of money was exactly what was needed. It's just too bad that the Democratic party chose to shut him down and suppress his message.
Lessig didn't drop out because the debate rules were "unfair". He dropped out because the DNC changed the debate rules midstream in a way that would exclude Lessig from the debates. His campaign worked hard to meet the requirement to participate in the second debate, at which point they changed the rules to exclude again.
Note that he raised more money than Webb and Chafee, who were allowed in the first debate; and if his name hadn't been excluded from polls, it's even conceivable he would have been allowed into the first debate.
Actually they kept him out because of how sharp he is. Afraid he would reveal how corrupt they are and the whole system is. Or are you saying he should never have tried something because it might not work?
Thank you, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and so many others, for courageously defending humanity, my freedom and more!
He raised the money they required. Then they changed the rules to requiring 1% in the polls. He got the required 1% in the polls. Then they changed the rules to require the 1% 6 weeks before the debate... They just keep making up new rules that will shut out just him. They are afraid to lose the ad revenue they get from corruption in politics.
Thank you, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and so many others, for courageously defending humanity, my freedom and more!
This is the Democrat Party we are talking about. The coronation of Hillary for 2016 was decided years ago.
No, his main problem was nobody knew who the fuck he was outside of a few nerds.
This guy was less prepared to run a presidential campaign than that fucking idiot Rick Perry. And that makes him a bigger idiot than Rick Perry--now there's an accomplishment.
It doesn't matter how prepared he is. Because the Clintons have the party establishment tied up, Dems have no viable candidates this year other than her, and she has a lot of legacy antipathy that will make the general election harder for her. Bernie's okay, but I figure he basically was allowed to run because he was too crazy a prospect to be a real threat to the Clinton machine.
Step one: learn your own history. Jefferson forsaw the rise of an American aristocracy and created a perfect tool to prevent and undo it: the estate tax. Since the early 20th century rightwingers have been progressively dismantling that tool and now, surprize surprize, America is ruled by a de facto aristocracy.
Restore the estate tax to 95% and the problem (in all its many forms) is fixed in one generation.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Ive met him a few times and Im from a third world country with no PHD at all. Yet he listened to my ideas with interest and gave constructive and useful suggestions. He listened to my talks the way I listened to his lectures.
You are slandering a man in ignorance. Elitist ? Exactly the opposite. He is a man who spends his life in search of new ideas and cares not where he finds them
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I thought his job was supposed to be convincing voters. Maybe that's just my biased view of living in a country with much less corruption. He did raise more money than several others in the race, including in the democratic debate and was polled at 1% in three separate polls. So he did convince people. He indeed failed to convince corrupt media that they should give up on millions of dollars of easy profit every year.
Thank you, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and so many others, for courageously defending humanity, my freedom and more!
Voting is not compulsory in the UK.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
when they refuse to put your name in the polls? That's what they did.
Shutting Lessig out was to stop the idea that money should be taken out of politics, because most of that money goes to the media organisations. Letting Lessig in would cut their revenue significantly.
Remember, this is an industry that wants to get skipping adverts made illegal because it might hurt their profits, and CEOs claim it is "stealing from the company" not to watch the adverts.
You don't think they'd make up rules to save the billions they get from political ad campaigns??
If we don't get leaders that actually solves problems into positions of power it really doesn't matter what we elect.
Lessig has no realistic plan to solve, or even address, any problem. His plan is to amend the constitution (something the president has no power whatsoever to do) and then resign. That isn't a plan, it is a fantasy.
Step one: learn your own history. Jefferson forsaw the rise of an American aristocracy and created a perfect tool to prevent and undo it: the estate tax. Since the early 20th century rightwingers have been progressively dismantling that tool and now, surprize surprize, America is ruled by a de facto aristocracy.
Restore the estate tax to 95% and the problem (in all its many forms) is fixed in one generation.
You might want to listen to "right-wingers" now and then to learn something. The estate tax in its current form has been around for 90 years - not since Jefferson. During that time the exemptions haven't been indexed to inflation so the size of an estate that is taxed is now dramatically smaller than it was back then. That means that it hits small businesses and farms the hardest. Meanwhile actual rich people have carved out big enough exemptions that they don't have to worry about it.
While I don't care to "dismantle it" (of course, I'm not a "right-winger", anyway) it needs to be fixed back to its original purpose of taxing rich people. The debate is similar to the left trying to raise taxes on "the rich" while succeeding in raising taxes on the middle class instead. Doctors and lawyers are not "rich". (In case you're that far left, let me make this simple: "but he has more money than me :(" doesn't mean "he" is "rich")
I know someone right now who owns a farm that's been the family for a few generations. During the time the city has grown up around it and the property values have soared. She's 84, husband is gone. It's unlikely that her four kids can come up with the money when she's gone, so the land will be sold. That wasn't the intent.
Do you have ESP?
He decided to remove the resignation component from his plans weeks ago. He was prepared to go whole hog. The Democratic Party still didn't want him in.
Maybe if he hadn't started off with such a silly plan in the first place, people might have taken him a little more seriously.
There are many labels you could give his plan, but "silly" seems inappropriate, at least if you know any history. The Founding Fathers would probably have strongly approved of such an initiative, since they knew their history too and modeled our country after principles of ancient Greece and Rome.
The ancient Romans had a specific way of dealing with a major crisis -- they'd elect a dictator as an "extraordinary magistrate" whose sole purpose was to deal with the crisis and then resign. The classic example invoked by the Founding Fathers was Cincinnatus who twice was given absolute power by the Romans and then gave it up to return to his farm. For the Romans, there was nothing worse than a politician who sought to keep power for a long time -- a trend that held for centuries until Julius Caesar finally broke that system and turned the Republic into an Empire.
George Washington has been compared to Cincinnatus a number of times, in that Washington could likely have been declared king after the Revolutionary War, but refused -- and then also made the example of resigning from the Presidency after two terms to avoid setting a precedent for a kind of king-like life-long reign.
I agree that Lessig's idea was idealistic and weird from a modern political perspective, but our country was founded on the ideal of a man who would take power to usher in ultimate reform (particularly in a crisis) and then give it up and return to his normal life. The Romans -- and the Founding Fathers -- thought there was no greater patriotic or noble duty than to be able give up great power once you have served your purpose.
The thing that's sad about Lessig's run is not only that he failed to get attention to his actual platform, but also that his revival of this old idea of giving up power failed to galvanize the American people, at a time when our system is moving increasingly toward concentrated power in the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. Such a return to the ideals of the Founders may be one of the few things that could prevent an ultimate devolution into a Caesar-like autocratic regime at some point in the future. (And if that sounds overly alarmist, consider that the decline of the Roman Republic happened gradually introduced by reformers who pledged to help "the people" more and more, and with each stage of "populist" reform -- and periodic scare tactics and wars -- the "people" voted to give up more and more rights to their ruler.)
This is what happens to all candidates that don't have strong poling numbers. They get shut out of the debates. They get hardly any questions at all. I thought this was supposed to be a democracy? I think that all candidates should get equal time in the debates. Give them all x number of minutes to make their case to the American voters. Without moderators jumping in or getting cut off by other candidates. Every time a candidate jumps in take a minute of time away from their talking time.
The current format is a circus. Nothing more than name calling and gotcha questions. Let's find out what they really have to say and let them stand or fall on their own merits.
Never mind that Sanders has been polling above Clinton at least part of the time, he's not "viable" because "reasons."
Of course, the only reason people believe Sanders is "crazy" is because the media keeps claiming so, but that's a total lie -- in reality, Sanders' positions are completely reasonable and moderate.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Based on results of the wars on drugs, poverty, crime, etc. We need a president to declare war on intelligence. I have high hopes for President Trump or Carson on this.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Dems have no viable candidates this year other than her
While Bernie Sanders is an independent, he does caucus with the Democrats. He's also trying to get the nomination of the Democratic party. You haven't explicitly defined 'viable' here, but I believe Bernie Sanders does indeed satisfy the criteria to be elected President.
Bernie's okay, but I figure he basically was allowed to run because he was too crazy a prospect to be a real threat to the Clinton machine.
So you're dismissing his candidacy on emotional grounds? How helpful. If only everyone thought like you -- then maybe, just maybe, we'd have a chance at implementing meaningful change in this country.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
I know someone right now who owns a farm that's been the family for a few generations. During the time the city has grown up around it and the property values have soared. She's 84, husband is gone. It's unlikely that her four kids can come up with the money when she's gone, so the land will be sold. That wasn't the intent.
Today, the estate tax applies to inherited assets in excess of $5.43 million. She has 4 heirs, and they can each inherit $5.43 million free from the estate tax. If it's "unlikely that her four kids can come up with the money when she's gone", the implication is that they'll face an estate tax burden greater than $0. That means that the total value of this farm exceeds $21.72 million, assuming the heirs cannot afford any tax burden.
I'd argue that someone with a single asset worth $21.72 million is indeed wealthy, and that the intent of the estate tax was (and is) indeed to tax her. If she chooses to allocate her assets such that she doesn't have any liquid capital, only the farm, then that's her choice. To spin her as some sort of charity case, however, is disingenuous at best. There's enough wealth to generate an annual revenue of $434,400 at a modest 2% interest rate (and even a CD will yield closer to 2.45%). Split evenly between the five family members, that's $86,880 per year per person, indefinitely, living off the interest alone. That's 3.25 times the size of the median individual income. While she has my sympathies for the loss of her husband, I won't be losing any sleep over this independently wealthy family's financial situation.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Never mind that Sanders has been polling above Clinton at least part of the time, he's not "viable" because "reasons."
Of course, the only reason people believe Sanders is "crazy" is because the media keeps claiming so, but that's a total lie -- in reality, Sanders' positions are completely reasonable and moderate.
He's not viable because the general election is going to be a whole lot worse for him than the primaries, no matter how he's polling generally now. The attack ads almost write themselves. They do for Hillary too because of how much is anti-Clinton on the right, so neither of them are great for a general, but she's already been through all of them and her general numbers now are the result of that, whereas Bernie will see a hit once the general public has seen more attack aimed at him. Things like "socialist" may not matter as much on the left, but that label alone will cost him points on the right. And some of his lines in debate will kill him on the right. In reality he *might* be a better president than HRC, he'd certainly care about Americans more and try to make better policy changes, although HRC might get more done even though being much less trustworthy, just because she's a good politician. Most of Bernie's more leftist ideas would be blocked by Congress, but he'd probably get some good things done. It's really hard to say who would ultimately be better.
But either will be better than the Republicans, because the next president gets to appoint major voices to the Supreme Court for the next several decades.
Biden tried and failed to get his party's nomination TWICE already. In this business, the third time isn't the charm, and two strikes is out. His 2008 campaign was effectively over just moments after it started, as he unloaded a half-dozen controversial statements about his opponents that went viral, and never recovered.
His continued poorly-considered statements after becoming Vice President prove he hasn't learned anything, and any Biden campaign is going to be peppered with video of him telling the viewer to "Get a shotgun" followed by usage tips which would get anyone else arrested for negligent discharge of a firearm. Combine that with his advanced age and recently-deceased son, and it's obvious why he wouldn't and even shouldn't run, without resorting to crazy theories.
There's no major animosity between Obama and Clinton that would cause either to set-up the other for failure. Clinton was a close second in the 2008 primaries, far ahead of Biden, and the obvious presumptive nominee next time around.
And just because Biden was Obama's choice for VP doesn't indicate any particular preference or connection. VPs are generally chosen to fill-in and balance out voting blocks, not because the administration has any particular preference for them. In fact quite the opposite (disdain and animosity towards their chosen VPs) seems to be more common.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
It's not like the Democratic party called him up and gave him permission to run. He declared his candidacy and then quickly and effectively put out a message that the majority of the country agrees with in a way that caused a lot of people to start talking about him. He forced his way into the Democratic contest, he was not "allowed" in. If they would have tried to push him away then there either would have been a lot of people asking questions about why some candidates aren't allowed to debate (which neither party wants to answer), or he would just run as an independent.
He wasn't "allowed" to run, he made it happen because people agree with his message. The reason why there is so much doubt around his candidacy is because the media and the parties keep telling the public that he is a fringe candidate. He's not fringe, he's mainstream. The media is trying to push fringe candidates like Clinton and Trump/Rubio/Cruz on people and call them mainstream, but the polls show that the majority of the country supports Sanders when people aren't being shoved loaded terms like "socialism", where they think it means something that it doesn't. You can see that in polls where people say that they agree with Sanders' positions, and also that they wouldn't vote for a socialist. The media is controlling the dialog, which is why you think Sanders is a fringe candidate or does not have a realistic chance at getting elected.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black