Bloomberg's Money

The other day, I asked All Seeing Eye Marc Ambinder whether you could pick Michael Bloomberg as your running mate and then have him spend his vast fortune on getting the ticket elected. Ambinder asked an election lawyer and the answer turns out to be: Maybe.

Comments

I'd think this is even more relevant for Romney.

Posted by right | January 14, 2008 3:10 PM

I also posted this on Marc's blog, but I believe this was covered in the 1980 election. David Koch was chosen as the candidate for vice-president for the Libertarian Party precisely because he was able to fund the campaign with his family's oil millions. This allowed the LP to run TV ads, and to crack 1% of the popular vote that year, and I'm not aware that there were any penalties against the party for using this funding strategy.

Posted by Don K | January 14, 2008 3:13 PM

Actually, I'd always thought the answer was a clear Yes.

Didn't one of the billionaire Koch brothers run as the VP of the Libertarian Party candidate about 20 years ago, and spend something like $10M of his own money on the race? In fact, I think Ron Paul may even have been the top of the ticket that year...

I'm too lazy to check, but assuming the law hasn't changing since then, it would be open-and-shut.

Posted by RKU | January 14, 2008 3:17 PM

If the answer is maybe, then the answer is yes. If a VP candidate tried to do this, any efforts to stop it would be litigated and appealed (probably more than once). By the time there was a ruling, the money would be spent and the election would be over.

Posted by DMoore | January 14, 2008 5:14 PM