Stephen Colbert Presidential Campaign, 2008 - Campaign - Legality and Viability

Legality and Viability

Colbert's official sponsor was Doritos brand tortilla chips. In an October 26, 2007 appearance at Cornell University, Colbert declared that, if elected, he would be "as good for the country as Doritos are for your body". Colbert's campaign was initially called the "Hail To The Cheese Stephen Colbert's Nacho Cheese Doritos 2008 Presidential Campaign", until he was advised that the finances obtained from Doritos could legally be used to fund only his television show's coverage of the campaign, rather than the campaign itself. Colbert responded by adding the word "Coverage" to the title. Some commentators argued that such distinctions could have had serious legal ramifications for Colbert irrespective of how serious his campaign effort was. In order to avoid breaking election laws and maintain the distinction between coverage and activism, Colbert had to move a petition for South Carolina Democrats to sign from his show's website to an independent website that is not affiliated with his show. A spokesperson for Comedy Central, the network hosting The Colbert Report, stated that, based on "the law, prior rulings made by the Federal Election Commission and advice of expert outside counsel", there was nothing in the run that ran contrary to federal campaign election laws.

Prior to Colbert's announcement, Colbert Report staff had consulted representatives of both parties. Joe Werner, executive director of the State Democratic Party, had been called by a Colbert representative three weeks before the announcement, for queries regarding filing dates and other requirements. Katon Dawson, chairman of the State GOP, had been called on October 15, a handful of hours before the show declaring Colbert's candidacy was taped. Estimations of Colbert's chances were mixed, but neither party disputed his ability to place himself on their respective ballots. The dual Republican–Democrat nature of the run, however, elicited opposing responses from the party representatives. Dawson found nothing in his party's regulations preventing Colbert from running on both ballots, but Werner was more leery at the suggestion. Said Werner: "I don’t believe you can do that." "It's in our rules somewhere that you can't be on two ballots."

Any candidate wishing to run in the South Carolina Democratic Primary requires the approval of the State Democratic Party's Executive Committee, which must declare a candidate viable before adding him to the ballot. The determination of what constitutes viability is up to the Executive Committee alone. The S.C. Democratic Party Executive Committee asserted that a candidate must have actively campaigned in the state before he is listed on the ballot. Several members of the committee expressed dismay over Colbert's apparent lack of serious intention, citing his failure to campaign nationally as a reason to doubt his viability; one member stated that Colbert would only get on the ballot "over my dead body."

Colbert also stated on the aforementioned Meet The Press episode that he did not expect to win the presidency: "I don't want to be president. I want to run for president. There's a difference," he said. Colbert made no attempt to appear on the ballots in any other state primaries, and so it is unlikely that he would have been able to gather enough delegates to secure either party nomination unless he were to win other states by a write-in vote.

Write-in candidates must generally submit forms with intention to run prior to being written-in by the populace; however, some internet campaigns started to garner interest in writing-in Colbert as a purely satirical exercise.