Comments on: An Aspen Ideas Festival Big Idea

By: scott

scott — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:29:22 +0000

Great speech. I wonder who will fight for the title of most unwanted? Congress person or used car salesperson. Anyway, nicely done.

By: Nick Smtih

Nick Smtih — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:30:11 +0000

I loved the speech. Very truthful.

By: Velvet Elvis

Velvet Elvis — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:31:38 +0000

@Steve Baba

Obama pledged to accept public financing iff McCain would reign in the 527s. McCain said there was nothing he could do about the 527s so the deal was off.

Obama, on the other hand, has asked all his big donors to not donate to 527s. Disavowing 527s is, IMHO, a much bigger commitment to ethical campaigning than accepting public financing because you took out a loan against it during your primary campaign.

By: Steve Baba

Steve Baba — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:10:36 +0000

It's too bad that a presidential candidate did not know a year ago that the campaign finance system was "broken" when he promised to use it. But now that he has smartened up, right take Obama’s word that he can fix it.

I don’t accept your argument that McCain is for campaign finance reform for selfish reasons (as Obama likely switched for selfish reasons) but even if McCain is just for campaign finance reform because it’s in his own interest – IT DOES NOT MATTER – you get campaign finance reform in any case.

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:04:10 +0000

You can be darn sure that the only reason that McCain is taking public funding is because he doesn't think he could raise more on his own (or that he'd rather help raise soft money). McCain is hardly principled about it. He flipped and flopped all through the primary purely according to expediency.

If he could raise money the way Obama has, he'd be rejecting public money along with Obama, because he knows the system is broken just as much as Obama knows it.

In the past McCain stooped to desperate measures and got caught in the Keating scandal. Perhaps that's why he pushed for "reform"; because he was never a fundraising leader and it would be to his relative advantage to bring others down and level the playing field to his level.

I wonder if he would have been such a "maverick" if he had been on top.

Bottom line: McCain surely doesn't come out smelling like a rose here. He's down in the trenches like everybody else, driven by his practical circumstances as opposed to some fictitious "principle"...

I mean, gimme a break.

By: Steve Baba

Steve Baba — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:30:03 +0000

If campaign finance the primary issue, one might want to support John McCain who is the candidate running with public money, who has his name on the major campaign finance reform bill and has not sold out the ethanol industry to win Iowa.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/us/politics/23ethanol.html

On the bright side if campaign finance reform is the major issue, and Obama can keep half his promises, things are bound to get better no matter who wins.

By: idjit

idjit — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:36:08 +0000

Hey Lessig,

what happened to "Rah Rah Rah Obama, oh yeah he's our man!"

your buddy Obama just voted to destroy the 4th Amendment. Looks like your political opinions suck ass.

By: Rick

Rick — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 03:22:48 +0000

Oh! An unhappy congressperson? Tragic.

Nicely done sir. You avoided the sarcastic political wit that we collectively chuckle at and forget. You avoided the wild-eyed activist rant that we all dismiss. You cagily swaddled a photon torpedo in words like “faith” and “trust” and sneaked it through the poor-baby's force field. Good show..

And I especially liked that this brief talk had a bit of an “edge” on it. I had hoped that you'd offer more of this. Lean-and-mean; that's the ticket.

Now if we can get Amy Goodman wielding an AK47 and spitting out four-letter words we just might get somewhere.....

By: bluebirch

bluebirch — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:12:56 +0000

If you don't have flash the video can be downloaded[1] as .flv and watched with (almost?) any modern player (e.g. vlc).

[1] http://www.aifestival.org/library/10min/01_063008.flv

By: The Aspen Institute

The Aspen Institute — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 22:05:52 +0000

In response to Gen Kanai: We will be posting video of the full session as soon as it is encoded. Thank you for your interest.
Kind regards,
Jean Morra, The Aspen Institute