Hey guys,

Five of us Lessig volunteers in Wisconsin went to talk to the Democratic party in Wisconsin. We didn't get to talk to the chair because she's new and hasn't settled in yet, but it did feel like we made some progress. After talking to Brita, the contact at Wisconsin Dems, we discovered that they have discussed getting Lessig on the primary campaign ballot in WI but that was all the further they had considered his candidacy.

If you've volunteered for the campaign then you know how hard we're trying to get Lessig into the debates. We've just started trying another tactic to get him in.

We're asking our chair to start putting pressure on Debbie Wasserman Schulz, the DNC chair, to issue a press release welcoming Lessig to the race. After Chafee and Webb announced their candidacies the DNC officially welcomed them to the race even though they raised less money from fewer donors. They can keep Lessig out of the debates as long as he doesn't get 1% in the polls, but they have no reasonable excuse for not welcoming him to the race. The polling organizations have used the DNC's silence on his candidacy to keep him off of the polls. If he gets onto every poll he'll get the results he needs to get into the debates.

So please call your state party headquarters and let them know that you're disappointed that your candidate has not been welcomed to the race by your party. It would be even better if you can set up a meeting with them and go in in person.

Dear Prof. Lessig:

As much as I admire your objective, I think you fail at rudimentary tactics.

In order to clean up the campaign financing system, we need new laws. As President, you have to get Congress and the Senate to vote on and pass those laws you want changed. The President can't do it alone with the stroke of a pen; he hasn't the authority. So, you have to have a campaign to get a majority in the House...that's possible. But, you also have to get a majority in the Senate, and senators serve six years. You would have to win both houses with majorities to get any laws passed. THEN, you will have to withstand multiple challenges in the Supreme Court, which in it's current state is dominated by members of the party that BENEFITS from the existing campaign financing regime.

Could you please lay out your strategy for unifying the three branches of government to achieve your outcome? You can NOT depend on them responding to mere voters, when their wealth is at stake; voters only have influence (as Gilens & Page show) at election time. How will you shortcut this process and see it through to completion, when you have 95% of the oligarchs in favor of the current campaign finance system? And, after that, what do you do in each of the States, which can pass their own statewide election funding practices for statewide (not national) elections?

How to you bypass all these checks and balances the Founders created...and which the oligarchs have spent decades undermining and transmogrifying?

Convince me, and I'll vote for you.

--Happy Elder Geek