Larry Lessig is a well-known professor who is seeking the Democratic Party presidential nomination. He probably won’t be in the first Democratic presidential debate set for October 13 because he is not averaging 1% in the polls. But that is because most polls have not included him. He is at 1% or better in the few polls that have mentioned him.
In this Politico piece, he documents deficiencies in the process of getting him into the polls. He puts a great deal of blame on the national Democratic Party’s refusal to consider him a “real” candidate. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
Actually, Lessig has not made it to 1% even in most of the polls that mentioned him. For example, in the USA Today poll earlier this week, he received just under 0.5%. (See http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/SUPRC/10_1_2015_complete_marginals.pdf, page 2.) He was also below 0.5% in the Fox News poll last week. (See http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2015/09/23/fox-news-poll-2016-election-pope-francis-popularity/, page 3.)
Admittedly, some of the candidates that will make it on stage to the first Democratic debate have fallen below 1% in several polls as well, and Lessig is disadvantaged by having been left out of some polls altogether. But he wouldn’t have a 1% average so far even if you counted only the polls that included him.
This election cycle the Lessig project finds out both major parties are insider parties and their both wired to exclude even implicit threats to two-party system. Lessig should know that and acknowledge he proceeds as a spoiler (outsider) of a (bi)partisan establishment.
Actually, Lessig has not made it to 1% even in most of the polls that mentioned him. For example, in the USA Today poll earlier this week, he received just under 0.5%. He was also below 0.5% in the Fox News poll last week.
Admittedly, some of the candidates that will make it on stage to the first Democratic debate have fallen below 1% in several polls as well, and Lessig is disadvantaged by having been left out of some polls altogether. But he wouldn’t have a 1% average so far even if you counted only the polls that included him.
(Note: This comment was blocked by moderation presumably because it contained two links, so I’ve removed the links. Anyone looking for the polls referenced above can find them linked from the Wikipedia article “Nationwide opinion polling for the Democratic Party 2016 presidential primaries”.)
The only voting system which is supported by all parties and independents is pure proportional representation (PR).
Candidates, voters and new reporting organization are all biased against PR but the new USA and International Parliament United Coalition has been using the unity, teamwork and cooperation generated by PR for twenty consecutive years and it works fine.
The USA Parliament:
http://usparliament.org/
And now the new International Parliament:
http://www.international-parliament.org/
Joshua, it’s not the overall average that matters. (If it were, Chafee would be out because he gets 0% more often than not.) It’s the average of your top three polls. That’s why it’s so ridiculous that Lessig gets measured by the same standard when he’s appeared in 4 eligible polls compared to Chafee’s 18. Chafee gets to use the average of his top 3 out of 18 polls. Lessig gets to average the top 3 out of 4 polls. In fact, in the four polls in which Lessig appears, his average support is higher than Chafee’s!