As Hillary Implodes, Harvard Law Prof Announces Democratic White House Bid

Running as the “referendum president”, Lawrence Lessig, the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, formally announced his bid for the White House in 2016, running as a Democrat. As a lawyer and professor, Lessig focuses on copyright, trademark, and intellectual property law.

“I am inspired by the American citizens that have rallied to my side to put equality at the center of the 2016 presidential debate,” Lessig said in a statement, quoted by NBC. “Every candidate running for president, both Democrat and Republican, should make a promise and a plan to fix democracy first, on Day One.”

The announcement comes after Lessig’s exploratory committee successfully raised $1 million by Labor Day.

Lessig presents himself as a two-issue candidate: he plans to resign and transfer power to his vice president once he accomplishes campaign finance reform and electoral reform. Back in 2014, he launched Mayday PAC, which donated to candidates who promised to take on campaign finance reform once elected. Initially considered a potentially highly influential political powerhouse, Mayday’s efforts have come up dry.

Even though he is running as a Democrat, Lessig’s platform of campaign finance and electoral reform might very well strike a chord with anti-establishment feelings among conservatives too. The popularity of the front-runner in the Republican primary is highly due to the fact that he is self-funding his campaign, rather than becoming beholden to a handful of big backers. But it’s probably the case Lessig is also no fan of having billionaires self-fund their campaigns.

The outlandish amounts of money spent on politics these days, especially on presidential campaigns, is truly bizarre and probably mostly wasteful. The money could be better spent elsewhere, employing people in relatively more useful capacities than consulting candidates on what “the right” words to say are.

The other story here is the effect Hillary Clinton’s implosion is having on the Democratic side of the 2016 race. Big and little names are circling her campaign like vultures. One can only hope she doesn’t even make it through the end of the year.

Now, where are Cornell’s Hillary defenders?