RandomNumbers

RandomNumbers's Journal

August 15, 2015

It's not "authenticity" it's "charisma" you morons!

And by "morons" of course I mean the morons on MSNBC this morning.

"Authenticity" has a highly positive connotation.

"Charisma" is more mixed, but less valued in a politician, when it is recognized as all an act with no positive substance backing it up. (Bill Clinton is loaded with charisma but when people scratched that surface they found substance as well)

If anything Hillary is far more authentic than Trump and the others from the clown car. With the possible exception of the very non-charismatic Santorum. (Authentic doesn't mean good policies, it just means you have a pretty good idea what they are and they track with how the person has behaved throughout their life.)

Let's be clear, personally I don't find Trump charismatic at all, I think he is a buffoon. But his buffoonery obviously appeals to a big chunk of the republican primary electorate. And that's charisma, not authenticity.

August 12, 2015

Lawrence Lessig will run for President ... if ...

he gets $1 million in crowdfunding by Labor Day.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/11/9132665/lawrence-lessig-presidential-campaign-finance-reform-equality

Harvard professor and outspoken political activist Lawrence Lessig is now exploring a bid for the White House. In a Tuesday announcement, Lessig told reporters that he's prepared to take on Democratic presidential hopefuls by making campaign finance reform his core platform. Instead of relying on wealthy donors, however, he is crowdfunding his campaign online, and will officially run if he raises $1 million by Labor Day. His hope is to dismantle corruption in Washington by making citizen equality the central pillar of his presidency.

...

Lessig says that, if elected, he will "hack" the system by serving as a referendum president, one who will focus his energies solely on passing the Citizen Equality Act. That act will undo political corruption by changing how elections are funded, guarantee the right to vote, and end partisan gerrymandering. After achieving all this, he'll step down, paving the way for his vice president to finish his term.

On his blog, Lessig writes:

In no plausible sense do we have a representative democracy in America today. That fact shows itself in a thousand ways — from #BlackLivesMatter to billion dollar SuperPACs, and none more profound than the deep sense that most Americans have that their government is not theirs. "The system," as Elizabeth Warren puts it, "is rigged." And the fundamental challenge for our democracy today is to find a way to fix that rigged system.

But iunfortunately, as this Gawker article succinctly notes:

http://gawker.com/lawrence-lessigs-ideas-are-correct-important-too-bori-1723388005

Lessig is absolutely right in his beliefs and he is doing the ever-unappreciated work of pushing for the sort of systemic change that is both absolutely necessary if we ever hope to have a well-functioning and fair democracy, and too boring for the general public to give a shit about. So let’s hope a more popular candidate steals his ideas.

Still, I think I might chip in a few bucks to his campaign. I would ****LOVE **** to have Lessig on the debate stage with Hillary, Sanders, and O'Malley. (At least in a debate about making our democracy actually work.)

As for other candidates stealing his ideas, each of them have already included some bits in their platform. But the difference is, there is absolutely no doubt that Lessig really means it when it comes to comprehensive electoral reform.

Lessig for President: https://lessigforpresident.com/

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