NYT:

In the meantime, Mr. Lessig said he and his family had been scraping by since kicking off his campaign last month. Harvard cannot pay his salary while he is on leave to seek office, and campaign finance rules say that he cannot pay himself with donations until November.

“I can’t even borrow money, except from credit-card companies,” said Mr. Lessig, who is married and has three young children. “The assumption was that I would be making the money in the family.”

Hopeful that he will still be asked to join the debate, though he has not been in contact with its officials, Mr. Lessig said he had been brushing up on a range of issues with his campaign consultants and that he was prepared. And he says that he is ready to talk about more than just campaign finance.

“I’m not going to be the ‘rent is too damn high’ candidate,” Mr. Lessig said, referring to his crusade to overhaul campaign finance. “But the objective would be to make it central and make the priority of resolving it inescapable.”

If he is shut out of the first two debates, however, Mr. Lessig acknowledged that it would most likely be time to pack it in and write about the experience.

“I didn’t intend this as a research project, but I’m sure after it’s over I’ll be reflecting on the craziness of it,” he said.