That was anticlimactic. A little more than a week after announcing that he was considering running for a recently vacated seat in California's 12th congressional district, tech thinker and Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig announced yesterday on his blog that he wasn't running after all. The reason is simple enough. A pollster showed Lessig that there was "no possible way" for him to win. And it wouldn't be pleasant.

Creative Commons founder, free information advocate and Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig announced today the formation of an exploratory committee looking in to a potential bid for a U.S. Congress seat. He announced his maybe-decision (with a more finalized announcement coming March 1) today on a new Web site, lessig08.org.