The most interesting storyline of the 2016 Democratic primary is not how a former cabinet secretary cleaned her computer server — "like with a cloth or something" — or the flamboyant socialist steadily creeping upward in the polls.
In my eyes, the most fascinating story on the left is the candidacy of Larry Lessig.
A little background information: Larry Lessig is an academic rock star. The bespectacled bookworm has degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, University of Cambridge and Yale Law School. Despite running in the Democratic primary, he has served as a law clerk for two of the most staunchly conservative jurists in America: Judge Richard Posner and Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. Lessig has held professorships at Stanford Law School, University of Chicago and currently Harvard University, where his areas of specialty have been business ethics, the Internet and intellectual property. Needless to say, Lessig is remarkably brilliant.
Garnering about one percent in the polls, Lessig’s numbers can only go up. Just think about it: After the first Democratic debate in October, he can easily spread his campaign message, excite a troubled nation, gain more name recognition, rally the optimistic youth of the nation and double his polling numbers to a whopping two or even three percent of the vote!
Like many on the left, his casus belli is curtailing the corrosive effects of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a decision prohibiting the government from regulating the political spending of corporations and unions. Lessig has made the controversy behind the Citizens United case the defining issue of his campaign. Curtailing campaign spending is literally Lessig’s sole ambition. Lessig wants to run for the highest office in the land and become the most powerful person in the country just to accomplish one task. After Lessig has added a constitutional amendment that undoes the Citizens United decision, he plans on resigning from office. He will forgo the presidency and make his vice president the new president.
On the face of it, this is a strangely innovative strategy. I do not believe a presidential candidate has ever wanted to run for office with high hopes of resigning. A Lessig ticket would essentially backdoor his vice president into the presidency.
Commentators and Lessig himself have floated possible VP — and, therefore, future presidential — picks. Vice President Joe Biden’s name has been brought up. And Elizabeth Warren, a former Harvard Law professor, is mentioned at great length. The Lessig-Warren ticket would be every progressive’s dream.
Despite the insane brilliance of the campaign strategy and the man himself, Lessig’s campaign is remarkably impractical. Americans want more from their president than just hammering home one policy point. A president must be an expert on many issues, not just one. I can imagine the first Democratic debate being incredibly awkward for Lessig. When asked about foreign policy, pressing social issues, economic policy or any other noncampaign-spending topic, Lessig would either shrug his shoulders and say "pass" or retort that every single political issue boils down to campaign spending even when it doesn’t.
The crux of Lessig’s campaign is the belief that if elected, he would have a mandate to change the constitution and campaign-spending law. However, whether Lessig is elected president or not, the president has no such mandate. The 2016 presidential election year is also a congressional election year. Each senator and congressperson has a mandate from their constituents. Congress’ 535 mandates on a plurality of issues will inevitably conflict with the one mandate on the one issue if Lessig becomes president. The American system does not allow the president to get what he wants just because he was elected.
Lessig’s one-trick-pony candidacy is truly a novel approach to running for office. Unfortunately, the plan is so novel that it cannot work. But the experiment is substantively fascinating and more thoughtful than anything else coming out of the Democratic primary.
Michael Beato is a UF political science senior. His column appears on Mondays.
