Lessig pledges not to run as independent if he loses Dem primary

Lawrence Lessig, an influential tech advocate who is exploring a bid for the White House, said he would “absolutely” not run as an independent if he were to lose the Democratic primary. 

The Harvard law professor has been raising money for the last few weeks to see whether his unique campaign message — exclusively focused on campaign finance reform — is viable.

{mosads}In an attempt to elevate the issue in 2016, Lessig has vowed to run to be a referendum president, who would focus on passing a single piece of legislation — to address campaign finance, gerrymandering and equal access to voting — before resigning and handing over the office to his vice president. 

During a Reddit chat Tuesday, Lessig was asked if he would “join Bernie Sanders in pledging not to run if you lose the Democratic nomination.”

He responded with a single word: “Absolutely.”

On his website, Lessig says he is running as a Democrat, as opposed to a Republican or Independent, because “I am what I am.”

Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, promised last month not to run outside the Democratic Party system because he didn’t want to tear votes away from the eventual Democratic nominee and be responsible for “electing some right-wing Republican to be president.”

Sanders’s campaign also recently said it would avoid attacking Hillary Clinton, the party’s front-runner, in campaign ads. 

Lessig sought to distinguish himself from Sanders in his Reddit chat, saying Sanders is talking about the problem but not offering a solution, like many other politicians do. He noted that Sanders’s platform is not possible until campaign reforms are put in place. 

“So why isn’t he talking about it first? Because the consultants are telling him: ‘here’s how you win a campaign.’ They don’t care if winning the campaign that way means you can’t actually govern,” Lessig said. “I do care about whether we have a government that can govern. I’m offering a plan that might actually get us that.”

Lessig added that making campaign reform just one plank in a platform, like Sanders has done, “is not a plan. It’s a wish.”

Lessig has become a major advocate of campaign reform in recent years. Last cycle, he ran a super-PAC dedicated to electing candidates focused on the issue. He left that group earlier this year before starting his exploratory committee. 

He has vowed to enter the presidential race if he raises $1 million before Labor Day. With 13 days to go, he has raised a little more than $593,000.