Dear Mr. Lessig, I was/am inspired by your TED talks. (I’m a TEDActive-ist.) I co-founded a nonprofit startup accelerator and serve on the Mayor’s Innovation & Tech Advisory Board for Houston. Three years ago, I decided to "run FROM office" – friends said I should run for office, but I didn’t want to win. After your talk, I now want to run in order to prove something: We CAN take the money out of politics. I want to run an all-volunteer, crowdsourced, non-corporate-funded campaign. Any advice?

I admire your courage. We need people like you in government. I think it is more likely we win just…