AP Online
05-22-2004
Dateline: WASHINGTON
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., is greeted by Navy veteran John Hollis Sr., left, after arriving at the airport, Friday, May 21, 2004, in White Plains, New York. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Boston this July can look forward to plenty of speeches, schmoozing, balloons and confetti. What they may not be able to count on is choosing their presidential nominee.
John Kerry's campaign said Friday he is considering delaying his nomination to gain more time to capitalize on his record-breaking fund raising and reduce President Bush's multimillion-dollar financial advantage.
The proposal would allow the Massachusetts senator to hold off spending his $75 million general-election budget by an extra month. Democrats would still hold their convention July 26-29, five weeks before the Republican National Convention in New York.
Kerry and President Bush are each expected to accept $75 million in full federal funding for their general election campaigns. Once nominated, the candidates will be limited to spending that money and can no longer raise or spend private contributions.
The Kerry campaign "won't fight with one hand behind our back," spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said Friday.
"Democrats are fighting more aggressively and in a more unified way this year than ever before," she said, adding that "we have the resources do it."
Kerry's campaign and the Democratic National Committee are considering the specifics of such a plan. Cutter said the nomination officially occurs after the delegate roll-call vote, so Democrats may have to find a way to recreate that or change party rules to delay the vote's effect for a month.
A Democratic official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said one possibility is changing the rules to provide that the nomination will take place Sept. 1, having Kerry give a convention speech that stops short of accepting the nomination, then recessing the convention until Sept. 1, when delegates could vote by Internet or proxy.
Television networks were uncertain how such a move would affect convention coverage. Over the past few conventions, live coverage has declined to a few hours per week.
"It's one more thing that's not happening at a convention," said Mark Lukasiewicz, who runs special-events coverage for NBC News. "It's one more thing to factor in as we decide how much resources _ financial and editorial _ we have to give to convention coverage."
Kerry's decision could be weeks away. Cutter said other options include having the DNC or local and state parties raise more money to support Kerry's candidacy. Kerry would have no control over much of that money. By law, the DNC can coordinate up to roughly $16 million to $18 million in spending with Kerry's campaign in the general election.
Kerry and Bush skipped public financing for the primary-election season, letting them spend as much as they wish until they are nominated at the conventions.
Since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee in March, Kerry has broken party fund-raising records. Last month, he raised roughly $31 million, pushing his total to a Democratic record $117 million.
Kerry started May with $28 million in the bank, far less than Bush's $72 million but still a Democratic record. Bush has raised more than $200 million.
The crucial question, should Kerry try to stop the clock from ticking on his $75 million general-election financing, is when the Federal Election Commission considers him the nominee.
The FEC and courts have traditionally deferred to party rules to determine how a candidate is nominated, said Larry Noble, a former FEC general counsel. The commission provides the general-election financing after the candidate is nominated according to those rules.
The DNC could change its nominating procedure, perhaps having delegates vote later, said Noble, head of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
However, delaying the nomination could affect the $14 million in federal funds the DNC received to hold its nominating convention, he said.
"They would have to come up with an argument that would basically look at the convention as continuing past the convention dates," Noble said. "In the end it would be up to the FEC and possibly the courts, if it's challenged."
Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt said throwing a DNC convention with government money only to nominate Kerry later could amount to a "bait-and-switch tactic on the American taxpayer."
"Maybe they've found a way to manipulate the federal law in such a way as to avoid that, but fundamentally this is about John Kerry thinking the rules that apply to everyone else don't apply to him," Holt said.
When Democrats scheduled the convention, they didn't know they would have a nominee who skipped primary public financing and its $45 million spending limit. They thought that as in past years, the nominee would finish the primaries close to the cap, with months to go before the government financing arrived.
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Associated Press writers Nedra Pickler, Ron Fournier, David Bauder and Aparna Kumar contributed to this report.
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