Lessig says his pledge to resign after passing campaign finance reform if elected president proved deeply unpopular.

In a 1,008-person survey about the idea of a referendum presidency, Drew Westen, perhaps the Democrats’ most influential messaging guru, tested both the idea of a campaign focused on fixing our democracy first, and the idea of a president resigning once that work was done.

The resignation idea was a total bust. No one liked it. At all.

But the idea of an outsider making fundamental reform the central issue of the campaign blew the race apart.

After a careful description of the idea, and me, the poll found that my support didn’t just increase. It dominated the field. And while the survey was not designed to test the ultimate strength of one candidate against the other—so the (insanely high) numbers it found supporting me can’t be read as a measure of actual predicted support—the survey did show the astonishing potential for such a campaign in America today. This fundamental issue, properly presented, totally changed the race.

I asked Lessig some skeptical questions about his plan to resign in the ELB podcast.  It is no surprise that the idea is unpopular.

But it presents two big challenges now for Lessig:

First, can he show that he has important ideas, thoughts and depth regarding other issues key to being president?

Second, what does it say about his judgment that he thought this was a sensible idea in the first place?