For Thompson, spotlight without the scrutiny
Quasi campaign can keep donors secret
WASHINGTON -- When a talk show host asked Fred Thompson earlier this month whether he had decided to run for president, the former US senator was unequivocal: "Yes. But I'm not going to tell you right now."
Yet Thompson is operating under regulations that allow him to "test the waters" for a presidential bid, which lets him run his quasi campaign through a committee that is not registered with the Federal Election Commission and can at least temporarily keep secret the names of donors and the amount of money raised. He has used the money to hire more than a dozen staff members and travel around the country, giving speeches at which he often sounds like a presidential candidate.
Some campaign finance specialists said Thompson is, at the least, operating at the edge of the law by fund-raising and organizing with few constraints even though it seems clear he's going to run, while the other Republican contenders have to reveal donor information and disclose their personal finances. That has let Thompson avoid playing the money expectations game, in which campaigns are judged in part by the money they raise.
"This is supposed to be a grace period by the [Federal Election Commission] to explore a candidacy, and it certainly appears he has gone beyond that," said Mary Boyle, spokeswoman for Common Cause, which advocates strict enforcement of campaign finance laws. What Thompson "avoids right now is the scrutiny that other candidates get from campaign finance reports. That is part of the vetting process of running for president."
Thompson spokeswoman Linda Rozett told the Globe that Thompson is just "testing the waters" and that his comments to talk show host Sean Hannity on July 10 before a live audience that he had made a campaign decision was "in jest."
"When Senator Thompson was on Hannity's program, the atmosphere was one of a rally, with supporters and signs and the crowd saying, 'Run, Fred, Run,' and being encouraged to do so by the stage manager," she said. "It was a lighter moment and Senator Thompson was kidding with Hannity and members of the audience. He has not made a decision and he has repeatedly said he has not made a decision."
Regardless, Thompson is trying to raise millions of dollars. Last Saturday, he held a fund-raiser for his committee at the home of a supporter in North Chatham, Mass. On Monday, he is holding a much larger fund-raiser at a Washington hotel that is being hosted by an array of high-powered legislators and others who back him for president. The event is closed to the media.
An invitation to the Washington fund-raisers says that an individual must contribute at least $1,000 to attend. Representatives of political action committees are required to give $5,000, which buys six tickets. Various media reports say Thompson has raised more than $2 million, which Rozett declined to confirm or deny.
Under federal law, Thompson is not allowed to run a testing-the-waters committee if he "raises funds in excess of amounts reasonably required for exploratory activity or amasses funds to be used after candidacy is established."
A number of other campaigns went through a testing-the-waters stage early this year. Romney, for example, loaned his committee at least $850,000 weeks before filing his statement of candidacy on Jan. 3. In addition, he used his political action committees to help pay for his travel while he was preparing to run for president. Giuliani raised about $1.6 million in a testing-the-waters effort before filing his statement of candidacy on Feb. 5, according to Kent Cooper of the nonpartisan PoliticalMoneyLine service.
Even some critics concede that the Federal Election Commission rules on testing-the-waters committees are imprecise. The regulations, for example, do not make clear how much money would be "reasonably required" for exploring a candidacy.
Nonetheless, the FEC has enforced its rule at least once. In 1988, it fined Republican presidential candidate televangelist Pat Robertson $25,000 for violating the rules. The FEC punished Robertson because he spent more than $5,000 during a rally at Washington's Constitution Hall, at which he said he would run for president if more than 3 million people pledged to support his run.
Despite the premise of the event -- that Robertson was undecided about running for president -- the FEC determined that it "went beyond the testing of the feasibility of a campaign and therefore exceed the scope of the exemptions" given to a testing-the-waters committee. Robertson spent more than $4 million in connection with the event, the FEC determined. The fine, however, was not levied until after the 1988 campaign, in which George H.W. Bush was elected president.
Lawrence M. Noble, who was the FEC counsel who signed the finding against Robertson and is now in private practice, said in a telephone interview the FEC fined Robertson even though the Christian Broadcasting Network executive said he was exploring a bid. "There were things that had indicated he had already made up his mind, and this was just the way he phrased it," Noble said.
Regarding Thompson, Noble said: "Anytime somebody is going to raise a lot of money and is going to go around giving speeches and talk about the decision to run for president, they are going to run the risk they are going to trigger candidate status."
Representatives of the Republican campaigns of John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and Mitt Romney declined to address questions about whether they felt Thompson was violating the law. "Governor Romney's response is, 'Come on in, the water's fine,' " Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said.
Thompson is likely to disclose his donors eventually. Some donor names are expected to be released next week as a result of his decision to create the committee under an Internal Revenue Service code that requires certain disclosures. A full accounting would be due by the end of September if he declares for the presidency under separate Federal Election Commission rules.
Thompson's decision to continue using the fund-raising apparatus of a testing-the-waters committee could come under extra scrutiny from voters because he led a congressional investigation of 1996 fund-raising involving the Clinton administration's dealings with political donors and said Americans were disillusioned with the campaign finance system.
"I think the American people look at a system where we spend so much time with our hand out for so much money from so many people who do so much business with the federal government who we're basically regulating and legislating on, and they look at that system and the amounts of money that are involved nowadays. They don't have much confidence in it," Thompson said during the investigation.
Thompson has given few media interviews during his exploratory phase. But during the interview with Hannity, he said, "The law allows you to go into what they call a 'testing the waters,' phase, and I must say, down here today, the waters feel pretty warm." 