Twelve years ago, my wife and I got very involved in Gov. Dean’s 2004 Presidential campaign. Our daughter was two years old when she first had her picture taken with a presidential candidate. It was exciting to be part of a large group of people working together to make this country a better place. As a blogger, I ended up at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and met a young State Senator who was to deliver the keynote address. Sen. Obama was a Dean Dozen candidate running for U.S. Senate. My wife was a fellow Dean Dozen candidate running for State Representative in Connecticut.

Four years later, I started the campaign season as a supporter of John Edwards. I liked his message about addressing poverty, something that seems to have even further fallen out of favor. Fiona was six by then and took a more active role, leading chants for Sen. Edwards and being pictured with him as well. Yet the excitement, the empowerment of Sen. Edwards’ campaign wasn’t the same as it was with Gov. Dean, not to mention character flaws that later came to light. When Sen. Edwards ended his campaign, we asked Fiona what she thought of Sen. Obama. She said, “I don’t know, I haven’t met him yet.”

To my friends in New Hampshire, that seems like a perfectly reasonable response, but to others around the country, it may seem strange, having a six year old expecting to meet presidential candidates. In most cases the only chance to meet presidential candidates is at a high dollar fundraiser, or maybe in passing in one of the early voting states.

This year, we are seeing Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley, Jim Webb, and Lincoln Chaffee. I met Hillary on the campaign trail years ago, and I’m ambivalent about her. I went up to New Hampshire a few months ago to meet Martin O’Malley, hoping he would be a candidate I could get behind. I like him better than Hillary, but I’m not all that excited about him either. Bernie Sanders is probably the candidate that best matches my political views and he’s getting large crowds, but his campaign, so far, feels similar to Obama’s and Edwards’ campaigns eight years ago, not as exciting or empowering.

As I listen to all of them, I remember the words of Howard Dean, “the biggest lie told by people like me to people like you at election time is that, ‘If you vote for me, I'm going to solve all your problems.’ The truth is, the power to change this country is in your hands, not mine.” Nope, I don’t believe that Hillary, Bernie, Martin, or any of the others will solve our problems. There is a bigger, underlying problem. Our democracy is broken, and it is going to take something really different to change it.

Today, Fiona and I went up to hear Larry Lessig officially declare his candidacy for president. It is a very different sort of campaign, a single issue campaign. “Fix Democracy First”. If I were to take Howard Dean’s words, and remix them with what Larry Lessig was saying, I would come up with something like:

“The biggest lie told by people like me to people like you at election time is that, ‘If you vote for me, I'm going to solve all your problems.’ The truth is, if we don’t fix democracy first, no one, not Hillary, not Bernie, not any of the others will be able to solve your problems. No one, except 400 of the wealthiest families in America will have any power.”

As Cory Doctorow put it on Twitter, “If you #FeelTheBern & want to make sure Pres Sanders can pass his agenda, donate to help @lessig #FixDemocracyFirst https://lessigforpresident.com/donate/”

Finally, after 12 years, an empowering campaign worth getting excited about.