There have always been ghost campaigns — candidates rarely if ever seen with no bucks, no campaign operation, and virtually no support. Most of the third party contenders could be considered ghost candidates. This time there are too many to count Other Declared Republican candidates in addition to the seventeen that are deemed “viable’ by somebody.
What’s never been seen before are Zombie Campaigns. At this point Rick Perry’s official campaign is sort of broke. Or least can’t pay staffers in NC. Yet as of 6/30, Perry had $17 million in his Super Pac. Thus, he could virtually disappear from the scene and TV ads in support of his candidacy could continue to appear for months to come. And that doesn’t even include other 527 operations that could do the same for Rick Perry.
That, however, misses another potential game changer. Well, maybe not so much of an advantage for Perry since his official campaign dollars mostly come from large dollar donations. But a candidate with a large base of small donors could take advantage of federal matching funds for the primary to keep a skeletal campaign operation alive and not have any difficulty in abiding by the campaign spending limitations (state-by-limits and an aggregate national ceiling) if she/he has a SuperPac that covers the bulk of the media advertising and is funded by a few super wealthy donors.
So far, it doesn’t look as if any of the candidates are anywhere close to putting together such a funding scheme. Among the Republicans only Dr. Ben has a large small donor base of any size, but his SuperPac pales in comparison to those for Jeb(?), Cruz, Rubio, Perry, and Walker. And all of those guys are dependent on large donors for their campaign funds. Clinton has no intention of being constrained by matching fund spending limits. Sanders doesn’t have a SuperPac and anyway, he can’t compete against Clinton if he were bound by the state and federal spending limitations.
But maybe Trump can. Anybody else remember the time that only Trump and Khashoggi cashed a check for 13 cents? (iirc Trump said that he might not bother if it were less than 13 cents.) How much could he collect in federal matching funds if he could convert all that enthusiasm for his candidacy into small donations? Not sure anyone knows. In 2000, Gore spent $49 million on his primary campaign and of that $15 million was in federal matching funds. The 2012 limit was reported to be $54 million but some portion of spending is not charged to the limit. For fun say that the limit is $56 million and “other” is limited to 10% of the total; that would mean a total of $62 million (more than all the GOP candidates but Romney spent in 2012). If all contributions were $250 or less, it’s conceivable that a candidate could collect $32.5 million in federal matching funds. There are other rules as well:
Candidate can’t contribution more than $50,000.
30 days after the candidate fails to receive 10 percent of the votes cast in two consecutive primary elections (unless the candidate receives 20 percent or more of the vote in a subsequent primary);
The date the candidate publicly withdraws from the race;
The date on which the candidate notifies the Commission, or the Commission determines, that the candidate has ceased to campaign actively in more than one state;
In other words, Zombie Campaigns won’t be applying for federal matching funds.
The WSJ reporter was a bit sloppy in claiming that Trump had been his own campaign donor based on the 6/30/15 FEC filing. Trump’s actual contribution was a mere $4,049.64. The $1.8 million was a loan. So, it’s still possible for him to go the matching funds route (assuming a self-funded SuperPac doesn’t count as campaign funding). Would such a self-funded SuperPac meet the “independent” criteria? Do any of them?
Looks as if the fun has only just begun.