Open Letter to Larry Lessig

Thanks for your service to the cause of openness, and thanks for offering to run for president. First, I agree totally with pretty much everything you say. I have been working on a concept to address these problems that could be implemented well and successfully as part of a presidential run. It would be a way to ally your campaign with Bernie's and other Democrats, but for lost voices across the political spectrum.

The essense of the idea is to work in non-partisan ways to maximize the participation in democracy.  Apply all the modern tools of social media and open source software to build on the ground assets that could beat the big money even without the necessary reforms that people like you are calling for.  We have to win your fight in the current climate.  We can if we are smart about it.

Use some of the money we can raise to give incentives to a large network of precinct level workers that are tied to their performance in adding to the voting roles, and enrolling their neighbors in local organizing.  Give the donors the opportunity to pledge cash against audatious goals in terms of registration on turnout.  It is particularly important to use the momentum and energy of a presidential year to feed successes in odd years and down the ballot. That's we we will have to implement real durable reform in terms of justice for all.

Part of my vision might dovetail with your need to eventually select a running mate and future president. We need better ways to select people for candidacy at all levels, and the social media based organization we would build with peer to peer production would also provide an experimental platform for collective decision making. We will be able to work to find the best methods to collectively choose representatives. It is unclear what would become of political parties in the environment that we would create. If we are sucessful most candidates will win very large majorities because they actually will represent everyone in their district. If a race is contested maybe two candidates do debate and one wins a majority in the end, but that will be real democracy, not the sham that all the big money brings.