[lewisl9029]

As awesome as Sanders is, I also happen to agree with Lessig in that campaign finance reform needs to take priority over every other issue.

Sanders is fighting for the right issues, but without campaign finance reform, every issue worth fighting for is going to face an almost impossible uphill battle.

[saalweachter]

Fun fact! Contra Lessig's plan to resign after magically gaining support for campaign finance reform from the two other branches of government, Presidents can do more than one thing per term! That means it is possible for a President Sanders to take action on both climate change and campaign finance reform, assuming the other two branches of government are amenable.

Amazing but true!

[komaromy]

Obama came into office with the same idea, then expended pretty much all of his political capital on passing the ACA. Lessig's plan seems to be on the same order.

[crdoconnor]

>Obama came into office with the same idea

Obama's ideas were never made very clear during his campaign. It was all "hope" and "change" and not a whole lot on policy specifics.

He then went and implemented the same neoliberal bullshit that George Bush pushed with a slightly different flavor.

[qrendel]

And that's a big part of what makes me continue to support Lessig over Sanders. Remembering how great Obama sounded in 2008, and seeing how that turned out, I give it a very high chance Sanders would be exactly the same.

Now we have a Nobel peace price winning president who regularly orders extrajudicial assassinations and prosecutes anyone blowing the whistle on the runaway national security/military-industrial complexes. So much for "the most transparent administration in history," the guy who was going to close Gitmo and stop the serial wars all across the Middle East.

[crdoconnor]

>And that's a big part of what makes me continue to support Lessig over Sanders. Remembering how great Obama sounded in 2008, and seeing how that turned out, I give it a very high chance Sanders would be exactly the same.

They're not the same at all. Sanders has a long history in Congress. Obama was a junior first term senator. Sanders is very specific about what he'll do. Obama was deliberately vague.

[hga]

Indeed. Look how Obama moved from a strong and repeated "if you like your guns, you can keep your guns", and previously as a Senator even voted for the bill putting heavy, direct penalties on Katrina style mass confiscations, to this month calling for ... mass nationwide confiscations of all handguns and semi-auto long guns, which Hillary! echoed in the debate.

Not sure if Sanders has changed here, he's not as viciously anti-gun, he's changed his language recently but, not, based on what I was just able to dig up, his real positions.

[crdoconnor]

Sanders also wants to reform campaign finance.

Lessig should throw his weight behind Sanders if he wants to have an actual impact.

As it is, if he takes even a few votes away from Sanders he could end up giving away the primaries to, well, Clinton, who isn't going to do anything about campaign finance.

Progressives need to learn that being divided with people who basically agree with them is how they lose elections.

[mikegioia]

Sanders' self-claimed biggest issue is climate change, which in my opinion trumps campaign finance reform.

[aidos]

I think the point is, until there's funding reform, climate reform doesn't stand much of a chance. Similarly, once the funding reform is done, climate reform will get promoted.

[toyg]

The problem is, everyone has his personal list of priorities topped by "something without which everything else does not make sense".

* campaign reform: "how can you discuss anything when your counterpart is crooked?"

* climate change: "how can you discuss anything if your house is underwater?"

* fracking: "how can you discuss anything when people are causing earthquakes?"

* poverty: "how can you discuss anything when people are dying of hunger?"

* etc etc

One should be humble enough to support the candidate that is the closest to one's personal pet argument, but who also has a chance to actually get elected. Lessig has no chance whatsoever, simple as. He wants hard to be a Nader but clearly lacks even the moderate mainstream popularity Nader had.

[qrendel]

The Democratic nomination has basically always been guaranteed for Clinton. Sanders, though I certainly prefer him over her, is basically a sideshow to make it look like the Democrats actually support liberal issues and aren't just a moderate deviation from the one-party system. If they didn't run anyone besides Clinton many people would consider supporting a third party or independent candidate, but having Sanders around keeps them identifying with the DNC until he finally gives up the campaign and endorses Clinton.

Support for people who aren't likely to win the general election at least shows what issues are important to voters, forcing them to give some concessions to those issues in order not to lose their base to third parties and independents. That's the real power of supporting people like Lessig and Sanders, even though they clearly won't win. Supporting someone you disagree with more just because they're likely to win is truly "throwing your vote away" - it's working against your own policy preferences to give more votes to someone who doesn't even need them.

[toyg]

> The Democratic nomination has basically always been guaranteed for Clinton.

That may or may not be, but second candidate with good numbers would have strong chances of getting a VP berth (for himself or a protégé). I don't see it as a conspiracy.

> Support for people who aren't likely to win the general election at least shows what issues are important to voters

Undoubtedly, but I think what Lessig is proving is that voters don't give a rat's ass about his issues. By continuing on this road I fear he's doing more harm than good to his cause. Even Nader's bid, which was much more realistic than Lessig's, did more harm than good to his movement in the long run.

> Supporting someone you disagree with more just because they're likely to win is truly "throwing your vote away"

The hard truth of First-Past-The-Post systems is that purism doesn't pay. A slightly-shaky alliance taking you to 40% trumps a purist core of 10% every day. That is an objective fact. It sucks, but you can't wish it away.

[qrendel]

> The hard truth of First-Past-The-Post systems is that purism doesn't pay. A slightly-shaky alliance taking you to 40% trumps a purist core of 10% every day.

Disagree. What matters in the end are the policies, not the person. In Lessig's case, he wants campaign finance reform. If whoever gets elected takes that up as part of their platform, and does their best to implement it as president, then he's won. If he gets them to take up a diluted version of it, he's still partially won.

Sending the message that you'll only support candidates if they align with your biggest policy issues is effective. Electing candidates who don't support your big policy issues is not.

(Edit: The part about voters not caring about his issues may be valid. From TFA he seems to think otherwise, but I wouldn't be surprised if in fact mainstream voters are completely apathetic towards campaign finance reform.)

[crdoconnor]

American politics is pretty broken but it's not so broken that nothing is achievable without campaign finance reform.