A public campaign finance law that gives one presidential candidate more money down the crucial home stretch is patently unfair, but John Kerry's solution isn't to fix it. By pretending not to accept his own nomination at the Democratic Party's convention in July, he would only game the system and end up embarrassing himself in the process.
The problem is that the presidential public finance law never anticipated candidates - and George W. Bush was the first - who would play both sides of the fence. Bush decided to forgo the public's money in the 2000 primary and hauled in a record $100-million in private money, only to turn around and ask for public checks in the general election. This year, he doubled his private primary fundraising, even though he was unopposed, and he was joined by Kerry, who has raised $115-million for a primary that was over not long after it began.
Both Bush and Kerry now want to double-dip, but the Republicans already figured out how to play this game. The Republican convention is five weeks later than the one held by Democrats, which is financially significant because the Federal Elections Commission doesn't write each $75-million public financing check until the formal nomination of each candidate. (Remember, it was the Democrats who set their convention date in July, thinking their nominee would be broke by then and in need of an early transfusion of public money.) Once the candidates get that check, they are no longer allowed to spend any private money. So Bush, by being nominated on Sept. 2, will get to keep spending from his private cache while Kerry, to be nominated on July 29, would have to stop. The effect is to give Bush more money in the final two months.
The inequity is obvious. But Kerry would make a mockery of the convention, and possibly election law, if he tried to be too coy. The Democrats, after all, already have received $15-million in tax money to finance a convention for the stated purpose of selecting their nominee. Would they be forced to return it? And what of the $75-million Kerry thinks he would get after his ploy? Suppose the FEC, or some court, determined he was no longer eligible because he had been spending private money under false pretenses?
The legal ramifications, though, are of less consequence to Kerry than the political ones. At this point, such a maneuver looks tawdry at best, and voters aren't likely to view him as a victim. The Democrats, after all, have been far from pure in their pursuits of campaign money this year, having already found a way to funnel huge donations into separate advocacy groups set up for just that purpose.
The presidential public campaign finance law is now more than three decades old, and Congress is going to have to face up to the unseemly modern practice of candidates who want to have their fat cats and their tax checks too. In the meantime, Kerry could be headed into treacherous political territory. As Fred Wertheimer, president of the campaign reform organization Democracy 21, puts it: "This really does have the feel of being a gimmick or a game. It has a lawyer's tone to it, not a leader's tone."
Kerry should be looking for the convention to provide him with the time-honored political bounce. If he gets too cute, he'll land with a splat.
