There will be less Lessig in the Democratic primaries.
Harvard Professor Larry Lessig dropped out of the 2016 Democratic presidential race in a Youtube video on Monday, blaming the Democratic National Committee’s cumbersome debate rules for “shutting him” out of the primary process and making it impossible for his voice to be heard.
Lessig was running to bring attention to what he sees as the corrupting influence of money in politics and got in after pledging over the summer that he would raise $1 million in donations before Sept. 1. He billed himself as a “referendum candidate” and said that even if he were to win the election he’d only stay in office until campaign finance reform was enacted, then he would step aside in favor of the vice president.
“I must today end my campaign for the Democratic nomination and turn to the question of how to press for this reform now,” Lessig said in his final address to the 2016 Democratic electorate, adding, “We can’t solve any of the problems that this nation must address until we fix the crippled and corrupted institution of Congress first. I am more optimistic today than I have ever been that we will win this fight.”
Lessig never qualified for the Democratic debates.
“I thought it was clear that getting in the Democratic debate was the essential step in this campaign,” he said. “I may be known in tiny corners of the tubes of the internets, but I am not know to the American public generally. Our only chance to make this issue central was to be in those debate.”
Lessig’s departure from the Democratic primary follows the exit of both Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee. The remaining candidates, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, will participate in the second Democratic debate on Nov. 14 in Des Moines, Iowa.
