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Kerry's Convention Scheme
Monday, May 24, 2004
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From the Chicago Tribune's Frank James on May 22:
WASHINGTON -- 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.
The only reason the two major political parties exist in law is to nominate their candidate for President of the United States. To that end, there are special provisions for the conventions at which those nominations take place:
First and foremost, each party gets a check from the US government in the amount of $18 million to fund the effort.
Second, the nominating conventions have gotten special dispensation from the Federal Elections Commission to allow corporations, lobbyists, and other organizations to use soft money to pay for parties, receptions, lunches, dinners, sky boxes, and silly hats to pay homage to the nominee of the party for which the convention is being held.
If Kerry sticks to his scheme and he doesn't accept the nomination of the Democratic Party at its nominating convention, then a reasonable person might well conclude that the event in Boston was not, in fact, a nominating convention at all.
It would appear, then, that what was to have been the Democrat's nominating convention would have to be considered nothing more than a Kerry for President event, an event at which all of the rules and laws - including the new Campaign Finance Law which Senator Kerry himself was sooooo passionate about supporting - would kick in.
The most important concept of the new law is: Thou shalt not co-mingle hard money with soft money and a national nominating convention is a veritable food processor of money mingling.
Everything which happens at the Boston non-convention will have to be paid for by the Kerry for President campaign. The delegates - precisely delimited according to gender, race, hair color, cable news channel preference, sexual preference and, if applicable, State in which married - will either have to pay their own way, or their expenses will have to be paid for by their state parties out of their federal accounts: HARD MONEY!
The city of Boston, which was to be the beneficiary of having the Democratic National Non-Convention in its environs is already not happy with the process. A Boston Globe article carried a piece this weekend by Kimberly Blanton and Andrew Caffery on Saturday which led:
"In the space of two months, the Democratic National Convention has gone from a $154 million boon to Boston to a potential $50 million hit to the local economy as businesses absorb the magnitude of the announced highway, street, and mass-transit closings.
"A ghost town was effectively the picture portrayed by downtown merchants and businesses this week when they learned that commuters, customers, and tourists would stay away during the convention which begins July 26."
And this was BEFORE the trial balloon about the greatly diminished status the event will now enjoy.
If the reports of the Kerry campaign having some $27 million in the bank (as compared to the Bush campaign's $75 million) and this decision means they will have to give back at least $18 million that will give someone - as we like to say in big-time politics - pause to think.
Looking over some polling data I came across this little nugget which went, not surprisingly, unreported in the popular press. In a poll paid for by the NY Times and CBS News, this question was asked: Do you think George W. Bush/John Kerry says what he really believes most of the time, or does he say what he thinks people want to hear?
Bush: 53-43
Kerry: 29-61
So, the money isn't the biggest problem for John Kerry trying to pull off this scheme. The biggest problem is it plays into a widely held feeling among nearly 2/3 of American voters that Kerry is - as we like to say in big-time politics - full of it.
On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Link to the Chicago Tribune and the Boston Globe stories, an interesting Mullfoto and an amusing Catchy Caption of the Day.
--END --
Copyright © 2004 Richard A. Galen
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