Now that
John Kerry has decided to accept the nomination in Boston, and thus the federal matching funds that eliminate his ability to raise more private money for his campaign or soft money for the DNC, he has asked for an
extension of time to spend his private money. I do not think that this will happen because this would be a signficant change in the rules of the campaign. The FEC in their 527 non-decision has indicated that they don't want to change the fundamental assumptions of a campaign at this late date. Hey, that makes sense to me.
Now I have a proposal that should ameriolorate the concerns of Kerry being forced to fight Bush's remaining private money with limited public money and the concern of having to stretch the same sum further into the stretch run while also reducing the incentive of the incumbent party to futz around with their convention dates. The proposal would go into effect for the 2008 cycle.
The FEC offers several levels of matching funds; major parties (~75 million), minor parties (>20 million) and none. The minor party (5% national threshold) matching funds is one of the reasons that many Nadar voters that I know used to justify their vote for Nader in 2000.
My proposal would be to let all candidates at a particular level of funding to make a choice at least 60 days before their convention in which they can either accept matching funds on the day of their nomination and thus all the restrictions that apply OR they can delay accepting their matching funds until the last day of the last convention of parties with the same or higher levels of matching funds. If they choose to delay acceptence of the funds, then they can continue to operate under primary season rules.
As I see this proposal, it creates a disincentive for a major party convention to be pushed back to September as happened this year because one of the primary reasons the GOP chose this date was to create a temporary financial advantage for their candidate. Democracy works best when alternative visions and goals are presented instead of when one side is unfairly able to satuarate the discourse. They would not be forbidden from hosting an October convention or a September convention, they would just lose some of the advantages of gaming the current rules. Parties which host early conventions can eitehr access the money under the current rule regime if they are poor or rely on private fundraising until the last convention. They are no worse off under this rule change. Minor parties with matching funds would be given a little more flexibility to make decisions, although I would think that most minor parties would accept the funds as soon as possible due to their traditionally weaker financial picture.
What do you think?
Crossposted at Fester's Place