Poliblogger writes about Rush Limbaugh calling John Kerry the ” presumptive nominee ” to be Democratic candidate, then muses on why he does so. Because there will be a draft Hillary campaign ? To make a joke ?
I have a feeling that this may be one of those moments when Rush is actually being entirely technically correct.
In the UK we have strict limits on what a parliamentary candidate may spend during an election campaign. It’s a low number as well. The definition of the campaign is the length of time between the announcement of the General Election ( or by election ) to the actual voting date, normally three or four weeks. Spending outside the formally defined ” Campaign” is not controlled. But of course, candidates are picked well in advance of this short run up to an election. All such candidates therefore refer to themselves, pre the election announcement, as “prospective paliamentary candidate ” so that any spending before the actual campaign is outside those limits. And yes, there have been cases where people have been accused, even convicted, of electoral fraud for overspending such limits.
In the US of course the rules are slightly different. But there is still a large distinction made between spending on primary campaigns and that on electoral campaigns. Who can donate, how much they can donate, Federal matching funds, soft money, hard money, all have different rules dependent upon whether one is battling with members of one’s own party for the nomination, or actually in an electoral race.
As far as I am aware, these rules actually change when the primary candidate is formally nominated as the party’s official candidate. So until Kerry is formally nominated, he is running in the primary, just as at the moment Bush is running in the Republican primary. All their spending comes under the rules for primaries. It’s only when they are nominated at their respective conventions that the actual election campaign starts, and the electoral rules kick in.
So while Rush is probably making the ” presumptive nominee ” comment as a joke, he actually is correct to do so, for for Kerry to call himself the actual nominee at this stage would mean he was spending ” electoral ” rather than ” primary ” funds : not something you want to do when going up against the largest electoral war chest of any Presidential candidate yet.