The Colbert Campaign

The absurdities of our nation's campaign-finance laws have rarely, if ever, been thrown into sharper relief than is available on Comedy Central, whence parody-talk-show-host Stephen Colbert is campaigning for president. His spoof includes an attempt to get on the ballot – in both parties' primaries — in his home state of South Carolina.

The "campaign" is of a piece with much of Mr. Colbert's satire, such as his crusade against bears and various attempts to get things named after himself. It has also gained a good deal of attention in the political world. Some are even trying to figure out if his fake candidacy could take real votes away from the contenders down in the Palmetto State; for instance, might college students or other young voters, perhaps inclined to vote for Senator Obama, instead pull the lever for a comedian?

It's wonderful fun, and there's a long history in America of satirical presidential candidacies: humorist Will Rogers (of the Anti Bunk Party), comedian Eddie Cantor, radio comedienne Gracie Allen (of the Surprise Party), TV comedian Pat Paulsen, and newspaper columnist Dave Barry have "run" for president. The difference is they launched their satires before the advent of the Federal Election Commission, a bipartisan agency not particularly known for its sense of humor. Unlike Mr. Colbert's hated bears, the FEC has the teeth to bite back.

What legal problems could a joke really engender? Well, under McCain-Feingold, the answer is: plenty. The central problem would appear to be Mr. Colbert's platform as host of "The Colbert Report," without which it is plain his candidacy could not exist. Since Comedy Central (owned by Viacom) is a corporation, it is prohibited from contributing to a candidate for federal office; and if Mr. Colbert is such a candidate, his show itself could be considered an in-kind contribution of air time to promote his candidacy — a contribution of some significant financial value.

The irony has hardly been lost on Mr. Colbert, and he seems ready to exploit any confrontation with the law as an opportunity for humor. The law sometimes is not only an ass but a jackass. The other night on his show, Mr. Colbert announced that his campaign, lacking in cash on hand, had taken on a corporate sponsor: It would be christened, "The Hail to the Cheese Stephen Colbert Nacho Cheese Doritos' 2008 Presidential Campaign." However, he said, his election lawyers (the real-life big-time D.C. law firm Wiley Rein) explained to him that there were limits on how he could use this corporate money.

He couldn't spend it on his campaign, but he could spend it on activities covered by McCain-Feingold's "media exemption," which allows press corporations to report on elections without running afoul of the law. "OK, so, it's illegal for my crunch money here to pay for the campaign," he explained. "But it is legal for it to pay for my show, and the show can report on my campaign." Thus, he said, he would refer to all campaign-related segments on his show from now on as "The Hail to the Cheese Stephen Colbert Nacho Cheese Doritos' 2008 Presidential Campaign Coverage."

It's beyond ridiculous–and precisely the point. At the end of his segment, Mr. Colbert had his producers draw a line down the center of the screen, labeling the right half of his body "Host" and the left side "Candidate," as he passed a Dorito back and forth from hand to hand. It was a wonderful metaphor for the fictions the campaign-finance laws ask all of us to believe — that newspaper and broadcast corporations have a greater right to free speech under the First Amendment than other types of corporations and associations, that outside groups spending millions on campaigns aren't coordinating with their favored candidates, that money can ever be removed as a factor from politics in the first place.

It's an open question whether the FEC will move against Mr. Colbert. He's clearly on their radar, but for now they're watching and waiting. Under current law, it's hard to see how Mr. Colbert could be left alone. He's not running as a write-in candidate, as many of the other satirists have; he's taking concrete legal steps that make it difficult to declare that he is not technically a candidate. Yet, one has to think the FEC would be embarrassed to interfere in what is so clearly a joke.

The agency would avoid a good deal of grief by simply ignoring Mr. Colbert or declaring his candidacy "satire" or "commentary." But by ducking the issue, the FEC would be conceding quite a bit as to the foolishness of the laws. What becomes clearer by the episode is that money and in-kind contributions are overregulated in America and that a government agency is in no position to judge what's satire and what's not. Mr. Colbert's joke's on the idea of federal campaign speech regulation in the first place.