Game the system

Yahoo (Chicago Tribune) | Kerry may delay nomination
Sen. John Kerry's campaign disclosed Friday it was mulling the extraordinary step of delaying by at least a month the Massachusetts Democrat's acceptance of his party's presidential nomination, a move meant to keep President Bush from enjoying a fundraising advantage.

...His campaign is considering the delay because of a disadvantage having to do with the scheduling of the political conventions this year and federal campaign financing laws.

Those laws require candidates opting for public financing of their general election campaigns to receive their money from the U.S. Treasury after their party's nominating convention.

For Kerry, that means he would be eligible for $75 million in public financing following the Democratic Convention in Boston, scheduled July 26-29.

The Republican convention in New York is to take place five weeks later, from Aug. 30 to Sept. 2, after which Bush would get his $75 million in taxpayer money.

The Democrats are worried because the Kerry campaign would have to make its public dollars last five weeks longer than the president's campaign would.

In addition, the Bush campaign could keep spending the large sums it has raised from private contributors up through the GOP convention. As of the end of April, the Bush campaign had raised a record $201 million.

The Kerry campaign, for its part, has had unexpected success in raising campaign funds from private contributors. By April's end, it had raised $117 million. So it would prefer to raise and spend such contributions as long as it legally can.

That would be unique, for the presumptive nominee not to show up at his party's convention. I guess there's nothing in the rules that forbid that.

The Democrats will just have to reschedule their convention to the same weekend as the Republicans. They might as well: Their guest of honor won't be there. I mean, really, does this inconvenience anybody? It's not like conflicting schedules or venues are a problem: They're in different cities, and none of the same people will be attending both, unless you count reporters.

On the other hand, the Democrats have now laid the groundwork to spend the next four years whining again about how President Bush wasn't elected. "He didn't win the presidency, he bought it."

LATER: It occurs to me that the Bush campaign can ignore the deadline, refuse the $75 million in federal campaign funds, and still be able to outspend the Kerry campaign. Perhaps the Democrats' best tactic is to find a way to shame the Bush campaign into doing just that, in the interest of "levelling the playing field".

The Democrats are going to severely tick off the press if their nominee doesn't intend to accept the nomination--unless that means the convention then gets to pick another nominee that will. Now that would be interesting.

LATER YET: I'm reminded that Dennis Kucinich is still running...