He is a luminary in the world of cyberlaw, a star Harvard
professor with a résumé a hundred pages thick, and a sensation on the thought
leader circuit. But even though he has raised more than $1 million for his
presidential bid, Lawrence Lessig, who is mounting a quixotic campaign for the
Democratic nomination, is struggling to get noticed.
He was excluded from his party’s first debate on the
grounds of weak poll numbers, while many surveys have not bothered to ask
voters about him. As two rivals, former Senator Jim
Webb of Virginia and former Gov. Lincoln
Chafee of Rhode Island, dropped
out of the race last week, narrowing the Democratic field, Mr. Lessig still
could not cadge an invitation to the annualJefferson-Jackson
Dinner in Iowa on
Saturday night. And while they have no doubts about his intellect, even some of
his academic friends question his intentions and whether he is really of
presidential timber.
Still, that does not deter
Mr. Lessig, 54, whose campaign has a singular focus on an issue that polls show
deeply resonates with voters: overhauling the campaign finance system, which he
calls the root of America’s problems.
Mr. Lessig at the New Hampshire Democratic Party State Convention in September in Manchester, N.H. Scott Eisen/Getty Images
He knew all along it would be a hard sell. At a TED Talk in 2013,
Mr. Lessig paced across a stage in Long Beach, Calif., dazzling a packed
auditorium with quirky slides that used devices like theoretical countries and
sayings by Henry David Thoreau to make his case that big money is plaguing
politics.
“The analytics are easy here,” Mr. Lessig — wearing a
black vest and tiny glasses, his hair slicked back — said at the time. “It’s
the politics that’s hard.”
Less than three years later, that has proved true.
Despite raising more money than Mr. Chafee, Mr. Webb and
several Republicans, Mr. Lessig’s candidacy is not considered serious by many
analysts or party leaders, who see him as an activist and gadfly. He did not
dispel that notion when he introduced himself as a “referendum” candidate who
would step down as president once he managed to overhaul the campaign finance
system.
With two weeks to go until the next Democratic debate,
Mr. Lessig is trying to resuscitate his campaign in hopes of polling high
enough to win a spot on the stage. Last week, he renounced his resignation
plans and promised to serve out a full term in the White House.
He has also relented on his insistence that campaign
finance is his only cause, unveiling policy positions on 15 other issues,
including tax reform and health care. And Mr. Lessig is perhaps the only
candidate around who attacked low-polling rivals such as Mr. Chafee and Martin
O’Malley, a former governor of Maryland.
“Why were they there? What were they offering?” Mr.
Lessig wondered of Mr. Chafee, Mr. Webb and Mr. O’Malley. “Other candidates are
playing a game of fantasy politics.”
For Mr. Lessig, the solutions are simple. He thinks a
fundamental overhaul of the electoral process is needed to put an end to the
gridlock in Washington. In short, he wants to tear up the congressional
redistricting system to end gerrymandering, enact automatic voter registration
and Election Day “holidays,” and give voters vouchers that can be used to
finance campaigns.
Admittedly a long shot, Mr. Lessig, with his $1 million
in funds, is not giving up on his dream. His campaign has invested in private
polling that supports the logic of his candidacy, and his small team in
Cambridge, Mass., has been working hard to book him on national television and
create a sense of momentum.
“As Webb Drops Out, Lessig Ascends,” the campaign wrote
in an email blast on Tuesday night promoting an online national poll conducted
internally in early October — show support for Mr. Lessig much higher than
independent polls are indicating.
After Mr. Chafee’s departure, Mr. Lessig said that he
thought there should be a spot for him on the debate stage, “at least if they
want to keep this thing interesting.”
To some outsiders, it is Mr. Lessig who is playing
fantasy politics and embarrassing himself by taking his cause too far.
Thomas E. Mann, a congressional scholar at the Brookings
Institution, has criticized Mr. Lessig, saying his mission as a so-called
born-again money-in-politics expert is starting to discredit and overshadow the
brilliant scholarship that brought him to prominence.
“I’m not surprised
by the lack of traction,” Mr. Mann said, noting that Mr. Lessig had revealed
less about how he would bring his proposals to fruition. “It’s like he got
ahold of an idea that he wouldn’t let go of.”
Mr. Lessig first became interested in politics as a
college student at the University of Pennsylvania, where he took a leave of
absence to work for a Republican who was running for the State Senate. He
considered becoming an operative, before academia beckoned again and he went to
study philosophy at Cambridge University, and then law at Yale.
After spending years defending Internet freedom, he came
to see corruption in politics as a monster that must be defeated, and he did
not let go of the cause. Last year, Mr. Lessig started a “super PAC to
end all super PACs,”
and in September, he set his sights on the White House.
Back at Harvard, where he is on leave, Mr. Lessig’s cause
has been met with a mix of bemusement, encouragement and concern.
“Larry’s a terrific guy, but I don’t think that because
you have a very important project, that therefore you should be in charge of
all the millions of things the president is in charge of, including foreign
policy,” said Charles Fried, a conservative Harvard Law School professor who
gave Mr. Lessig $100 anyway.
Alex Whiting, a Harvard Law professor who was best man at
Mr. Lessig’s wedding, was surprised last summer when they sat on a boat in New Hampshire
and his old friend revealed his plans to run for president. While highly
intelligent, he said, Mr. Lessig does not have the chatty demeanor of a regular
politician, and Mr. Whiting said he worried about the toll the campaign could
take.
“I think it’s been frustrating for him,” Mr. Whiting
said. “He’s brilliant and offers new ways of thinking about familiar problems,
but ideas don’t always carry the day.”
Mr. Whiting said he was getting used to seeing Mr. Lessig
as a candidate. “Imagining him as president, that’s a further leap,” he said.
Although Mr. Lessig denies that he is just trying to make
a statement, at the very least, his campaign, if it ultimately fails, could
underscore his point that the modern-day presidency’s being available to anyone
is a myth.
“It becomes a vicious cycle of not being able to compete
because you are set up as someone who is not allowed to compete,” he said.
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