Lessig for Congress."This is about building a parallel to Creative Commons in Congress," Lessig explains, referencing the popular legal license he created to help authors and artists make their work available for free distribution and modification. Just as creators under a Creative Commons license cede some control over their works in order to promote a robust open-source culture, Lessig's political vision entails "people in power, legislators, voluntarily waiving that power in order to build a better system." If politicians begin foreswearing PAC money, the theory runs, voters may come to see the failure to refuse lobbyist dollars as a badge of shame rather than simply the way things are done.
Lessig's wikipedia page in case you don't know who he is.
Lantos' seat is a safe Democratic seat. Lantos was too often on the wrong side of things for someone in a safe seat. (Don't get me started on Feinstein).
BTW, the Lantos seat isn't safe due to gerrymandering. The whole SF Bay Area and Santa Cruz are pretty solid dem seats. The only recent exception that comes to mind was a pro-business, libertarian, socially moderate Tom Campbell. Campbell was also a Stanford prof at the time he first ran for Congress.
Campbell made the mistake of voting for Clinton's impeachment. He was toast in NorCal after that.
Or not. Lessig decides not to run.
Presumably this is because Obama told him he was #1 in line for SCOTUS.</kidding>
I'm not that familiar with peninsula politics (it's the chunk of land between Silicon Valley and San Francisco), so I did a little reading on Jackie Speier.
She had planned to challenge Lantos from the left in the primary, but was endorsed by Lantos after his retirement. Her political career dates back to being a legislative aide to Congressman Ryan, who was gunned down after visiting Jonestown. Speier was on the trip, and survived the attack. She's risen through the ranks of county and state government over 30 years, including a close loss in the primary for lt. governor.
Regarding Lessig's chances against Speier: NFW.
Good call.
Don't know how it works elsewhere, but there seems to be a lot of intra-party cohesion in the California Democratic party. And, with term limits in the state legislature, there are a lot of folks looking to jump to the next rung. For an outsider to leap into a seat in California's House delegation would be hard.
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Lessig's wikipedia page in case you don't know who he is.
- jim 2-21-2008 11:26 pm
Lantos' seat is a safe Democratic seat. Lantos was too often on the wrong side of things for someone in a safe seat. (Don't get me started on Feinstein).
BTW, the Lantos seat isn't safe due to gerrymandering. The whole SF Bay Area and Santa Cruz are pretty solid dem seats. The only recent exception that comes to mind was a pro-business, libertarian, socially moderate Tom Campbell. Campbell was also a Stanford prof at the time he first ran for Congress.
Campbell made the mistake of voting for Clinton's impeachment. He was toast in NorCal after that.
- mark 2-22-2008 1:16 am
Or not. Lessig decides not to run.
Presumably this is because Obama told him he was #1 in line for SCOTUS.</kidding>
- jim 2-26-2008 1:03 am
I'm not that familiar with peninsula politics (it's the chunk of land between Silicon Valley and San Francisco), so I did a little reading on Jackie Speier.
She had planned to challenge Lantos from the left in the primary, but was endorsed by Lantos after his retirement. Her political career dates back to being a legislative aide to Congressman Ryan, who was gunned down after visiting Jonestown. Speier was on the trip, and survived the attack. She's risen through the ranks of county and state government over 30 years, including a close loss in the primary for lt. governor.
Regarding Lessig's chances against Speier: NFW.
Good call.
Don't know how it works elsewhere, but there seems to be a lot of intra-party cohesion in the California Democratic party. And, with term limits in the state legislature, there are a lot of folks looking to jump to the next rung. For an outsider to leap into a seat in California's House delegation would be hard.
- mark 2-26-2008 2:29 am