Is there a good reason that candidates are so coy about officially announcing their run?

Politics & Elections
1

Other than that’s just how everyone else does it?

Here’s why I think they do it and some counterarguments that also make sense, to me at least:

  1. Less attacks from opponents before officially declaring

Maybe some candidates think they will scoot by under the radar for a while and let the other officially declared candidates fight amongst themselves. I can see that partly working. Cruz declared and interest has been higher than normal, I think, about him and of course people are now writing articles and lists about why he’d make a bad or good president. Rand Paul just declared and he seems to be attacked immediately after going through a relatively calm media cycle. I can only imagine the response will be louder once Hillary declares.

But with high profile candidates like these (as opposed to the Herman Cains), isn’t it fair to say that they’ll be attacked regardless of when they declare? May as well get it out of the way early, right? If there’s one thing I know about public opinion, its that eventually people and the media just get sick of the same old story (unless you’re Fox News and trying to shill one side). Its 19 months until the election, why not declare really early and get that initial bad press out of the way?

  1. More fundraising opportunities

I read somewhere that once you officially declare, you’re forced to alter your fundraising capabilities due to campaign finance laws. Not sure what the details are though. But with super PACs legal now, does it really make a difference? Wouldn’t the money you get from having a few months head start on official fundraising offset what you’d lose by declaring late and having access to whatever fundraising capabilities you have before official candidacy?

Also, and I’m not sure exactly how this works, but candidates can’t just fundraise for themselves for private reasons, right? It has to be towards some campaign. So lets say Rand Paul, before he officially declares, he can’t just have a $1000 plate dinner party where all the cash goes into his own pocket to spend on whatever he likes, right? He has to say its officially for some political purpose. So wouldn’t people be more likely to donate if he declares for president compared to whatever nebulous purpose he said the fundraisers were for if he wasn’t a candidate?

  1. Keep media in suspense and opponents guessing

Maybe this would have worked decades ago, but with multiple 24 hour news channels and social media, I don’t see much difference in media and opponent behavior before and after except for a slight increase in interest. First of all the media knows long before a candidate officially declares, and even if they didn’t, its not like they’d let a juicy Rand Paul story or Hillary Story go unreported. We just went through a few days of coverage for Bush’s hispanic voter registration. Would the narrative change at all if he had declared a week ago? And more importantly, the people who attacked him for that are not going to just ignore it just because he’s not a candidate (though we all know he will be). I don’t see any evidence that putting off declaring would mitigate bad news at all

  1. No real advantage to declaring too early

Perhaps it is just momentum. Nobody declares too early because nobody else does it, though the cycle seems to be moving earlier and earlier every election. But what would have happened had, say, Ted Cruz mention in an interview 5 months ago that “Oh yeah, I’m going to run for president for sure, I’ll just wait a little bit to declare officially”. I don’t like the hemming and hawing, the half-answers and stupid coyness when someone’s asked and they say “Oh I don’t know yet, my team is doing research, blah blah blah, have to do it when its ready, blah blah blah.” Hell, why not just say in December of 2014 “I’m going to replace Obama as president in 2 years and intend to spend the next 2 years proving that I’m the best person for the job to the American people”? They don’t have to file the official paperwork, but just let people know that he’s going to be part of the 2016 GOP candidates

  1. No reason to peak early, there’s a typical timetable for these things

The only think I can think of is that there has been a lot of research already done about when the best time to declare is, maybe X number of months ahead, and according to the research, you get X-2 months of “new candidate smell” advantage, then X-2 of attacks and responding, followed by a few more months of fundraising, campaigning, whatever. And nobody wants to deviate from that because they’re scared of the unknown.

2

I think the main reason is 2. My understanding is that, until the candidate officially declares, they can coordinate with the Super PACs. Once they declare, that’s done. Also, staffing and other expenses suddenly become subject to audit. I heard that, a few days ago, the Clinton campaign signed a lease on headquarters in Brooklyn. Apparently, this means she must declare within 14 days to be within finance laws. Guess we’ll see in the next week or so.

3

They do get to see which narratives take hold, and have time to prepare their strategies and official responses. Once the game is on, it’s on until it’s finished.

Unless the campaigns are suspended or something.

4

I think there’s an element of this. Jumping into the race is a big commitment of your political capital. You’d hate to do it and then find out you’ve picked the wrong year. Somebody like Jeb Bush has to decide if he should challenge Obama in 2012 or wait until 2016 to fight a non-incumbent. But what if another Republican wins? You can’t challenge your own party’s President so 2020 is out. How will running for President affect your day job as Governor or Senator or whatever? What other candidates will be running? What direction is the economy heading?

5

Is Sunday soon enough for you?: http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2015/04/10/newday-hillary-clinton-to-announce-campaign.cnn

6

NYT on the uncandidates: Opinion | Catch the Candidates if You Can - The New York Times

7

Is this true? Is it true only because he’s already an elected official?

If I, holder of no public office, were to put on a $1000 plate dinner party and convinced people to pay me that much, surely I can do so and spend the money on whatever I want, right? As long as I pay taxes on the income.

I think Little Nemo is right that #4 is a major consideration. It’s much better to be a fresh new candidate who’s never run than one who’s run and lost, which means that picking the right time to run is important, and declaring early means you have less information on which to base your decision.

8

You can, but the tax penalty would be pretty high, while if someone donates to a campaign, all of the money can go to that purpose.

Plus most of the people running are public office holders already, and so have limits on what they can take by way as personal gifts. And even for those that don’t, I suspect the public would look askance at someone taking large amounts of money as an individual just before they ran for public office.

I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone funding a campaign that way, except maybe for candidates with rich spouses (Kerry, McCain) transferring money over to the candidates name so they can spend it on their own campaigns.

9

It’s all about the Benjamins, baby: http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/18/politics/election-2016-gop-super-pacs-running/index.html

10

As an elected official and/or candidate, there are lots of things you can do that benefit you, but avoid paying taxes on it.

  • you can spend the money on fact-finding trips for you & your family to foreign destinations, like Paris in the Springtime, or the Bahamas in mid-winter.
  • you can hire your spouse as campaign manager, and your kids as campaign staff, so that much of the money ends up as family income.
  • you can spend money renting a campaign office, a gourmet chef to provide meals to you & your campaign workers, a weekly campaign masseuse, a campaign limo & driver, etc.
  • you can pay for lots of new clothes, weekly haircuts, spa treatments, etc. as legitimate campaign expenses.
  • you can buy fancy new computers, smart phones, Aerion chairs, office furniture as campaign supplies; after the campaign is over a few months later, sell those to yourself at greatly-deprecated ‘used’ prices.
  • you can hire your friends as campaign consultants, accountants, attorneys, etc., expecting that in return they will later do you ‘favors’.

I’ve seen nearly all of these done, and pretty much legally.