Kerry earmarks $6m for congressional candidates
The campaign of Democrat John F. Kerry has earmarked $6 million for Democratic committees that support congressional candidates from the sizable surplus left over from the privately funded phase of his presidential campaign.
But a campaign spokesman yesterday said the total amount of additional surplus funds is still being calculated -- including funds that can be turned over to the Democratic National Committee that is buttresssing the Kerry-Edwards candidacy with television ads in 20 key states.
''We haven't decided yet," Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan said of the amount the campaign expects to turn over to the DNC. ''We will finish up our report on Friday" to the Federal Election Commission, Meehan said, closing the books on the phase of the campaign that ended July 29 when Kerry accepted the party's nomination in Boston.
At that point, Kerry-Edwards received $74.7 million in federal funds for the general election campaign and had to cease private fund-raising. It also suspended its paid advertising for the month in an effort to conserve funds, because President George W. Bush's campaign can spend privately raised funds up to Sept. 2, when he formally receives the Republican nomination in New York City and accepts the same amount of public funding for the fall campaign.
The Globe last month estimated the Kerry campaign could have more than $25 million to hand over to the party committees, including the DNC, but Meehan said yesterday the precise figure has not yet been determined.
The campaign did announce yesterday, however, that it was giving $3 million apiece to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which provide funding to the party's House and Senate candidates, respectively.
The DNC, meanwhile, has set up an ''independent expenditure" operation that after the Democratic convention immediately began spending more than $6 million a week in advertisements in battleground states on behalf of the Kerry-Edwards ticket.
BRIAN MOONEY
