Fred and the FEC

With an FEC Complaint filed against Fred Thompson for, among other things, raising money for amassing campaign funds to be spent after he becomes a candidate, you would think he'd try to do a better job hiding it.

Right now he has millions in the bank. The fact that he's still fundraising, while expecting to announce "in the near future," suggests one of two things:

1. He plans on spending the millions he has on hand in the couple of weeks, and these new contributions are also to be spent on exploratory activities before he declares.
2. He's raising money for after he "officially" declares he's a candidate.

None of this is necessary for the complaint to be valid, of course, given that there are other grounds also mentioned in the complaint.

But my point is that it's not about whether some magic dollar amount constitutes a violation. Rather, it's about his current actions fundraising beyond what he'll be using for exploratory actions, given he admits knowing his announcement will be "in the near future."

Comments (2) «

Ok. I'm not sure what you are saying, Michael. But I get the idea that Thompson is playing a game of Steal the Bacon?

1

SandyH on August 22, 2007 at 10:08 PM

The point here is that Fred is raising money for his run after he declares, while the law says you can only raise money for "exploratory activities" until you declare.

Thus, he's raising money under false pretenses.

2

JKAR on September 4, 2007 at 03:48 PM

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