Fuzzy Math: A recent figure I read put a $35k monthly P&I payment on note assuming very generous terms. Nearly 3x the good Senator's salary? Even an implied "Predidential payraise" doesn't justify those loan to income ratios.

I felt this loan stunk from the beginning.

No way "average John" gets such treatment from any lender. I'm sure that there was alot of winking going on while the paperwork was being completed, with the expectation that the Heinz fortune will be used to pay it off at a later date when nobody is looking.

Fortunately she is not that bad looking for a 65 year old broad.

Can he pick a rich Veep who would then contrib the $$ for the loan and pay it off? Seems like he would do that if he could.

I think Mike M's right - this was a sweetheart below the table deal that will be paid off down the road not by Kerry but by some movement of funds from campaign funds.

Question: Has John Glenn ever paid off the loans he took out for his presidential run in 1984? I heard that when he retired from the senate some of them were still outstanding.

I agree with Robert Schwartz I believe she is quite attractive.
I wish a lawyer familiar with this stuff could explain why she can't contribute funds to the campaign. It's ridiculous that she can't and I would think that it is a closer legal call than it's been presented so far. Just because the election commission or whoever decides these things says it's so doesn't make it so.

Last I heard (several years ago) the lab rat on for STS-95 (actually, he was ballast) was still technically on the hook for those debts. But let's not forget that creditors aren't obligated to call in debts, it just seems that way.

Maria Cantwell had a similar deal here in the Upper Left Washington in 2000-- she "lent" her campaign the funds necessary from a fortune made by cashing out of Real Networks at the right time. Once she won, she could continue fundraising for future campaigns as well as paying off her creditors (herself). If she'd lost, the creditors (herself) would have just written it off (for a tax credit) as a bad debt. Another example of dot-com finances in action.

Anyone who thinks JF***Kerry (former Vietnam war criminal) is going to be living under a bridge is deluding themself.

Except for disclosure, I'm pretty much against any campaign funding laws, but why in the world would a wife not be able to pay off a campaign loan?

Can she donate directly? One would guess not.

Do we need a Defense of Political Bedfellows Act?

Keep your eyes open for a fund that average folk may contribute to - however, don't expect the same level of support that the Clinton Defense Fund received (which was much less than hoped for).

I suspect Teresa's children will give rather large donations.

Harry -- I'm with you on what the law ought to be and this is a particular circumstance in which the law as it stands is nuts. As I understand it, a wife is treated more or less like any other contributer when it comes to her own money and thus Ms. Heinz-Kerry can give him her $2000 just like all the rest of us.

If they held their property jointly, then Mr. Heinz-Kerry would have access to all of it. That's why he could mortgage "their" house and lend the proceeds to his campaign. (That it was a loan explains why he can be repaid with campaign funds.)

The tricky part comes with respect to gifts she gives him during the campaign that he then uses in the campaign. As I understand it, the FEC has decided that a gift is a donation unless it matches a pattern of gifts that predates the campaign. So, for example, if she had given him a monthly allowance before the campaign began, she would still be able to give him an allowance now, even if he just started shovling it into the campaign.

Note, however, that the punishment exacted by the FEC for getting these things (campaign fund raising generally, that is. I don't think trust fund spouses has come up before) wrong is pretty minimal and certainly they don't make you give the White House back.

Note, also, that she can make unlimited "independent" expenditures on her husband's behalf -- assuming that the FEC agrees that her political work could ever be independent of her husband's campaign. On the other hand, see the first note. If she did get it wrong, and if the FEC suddenly proved to have a hitherto unsuspected spine, she would probably be the one to go to jail, not him (although I don't want to give him any ideas).

This whole Kerry-Heinz prenup thing is all rather bizarre. Why would you entrust someone with your life, as husbands and wives must do in so many ways, but not your money? And if she doesn't trust him with her (former husband's?) money, why should we trust him to be President?

The prenup is all about getting the Heinz fortune to the Heinz children, and perfectly unremarkable.

Ensuring the money goes to the Heinz children makes perfect sense, I concede. It never occured to me, seeing as I don't have to worry about making sure my parent's several hundred million dollar fortune goes to my kids. Kerry's such a man of the people...

You're all missing the real question: Where's the Larry Sabato quote?

RPS asked about the Gleen campaign debt. I thought I would share an article from yesterday's Columbus Dispatch about that very issue, (I give the link, but you have to be a Dispatch subscriber to acess the page and why would want to do that unless you lived here?). It very nicely illustrates the absurdity of the Federal campaign finance rules.

Glenn’s debt still on books
Loans from ’84 campaign remain unpaid
Monday, February 09, 2004
Jack Torry
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
http://www.dispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/2004/02/09/20040209-C1-01.html
[subscription required]
WASHINGTON — Every three months, a bookkeeper in Virginia types a few changes in the report. First, on page 24 she adds to the interest owed four Ohio banks. Next, she turns to the first page and calculates the total debt. Then she prints it out, has the campaign treasurer sign it, and mails it to the Federal Elections Commission.

Twenty years ago today, John Glenn took out the loans in a desperate attempt to save his oncepromising presidential campaign. The loans did little good; the Democratic senator withdrew from the race a few weeks later.

The report shows that the former astronaut still owes $2.61 million from a race that ended in ignoble failure. Except for filing four reports a year, the campaign is dormant, its fund-raising efforts at an end.

"There are no plans or any ongoing activities," said Mary Jane Veno, who serves as a senior adviser to Glenn at the Glenn Institute at Ohio State University. "At this point, in my opinion, no more of his personal money would be used to reduce the debt or pay it off."

Larry Noble, former general counsel for the FEC and now president of the nonpartisan watchdog Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, said, "in theory, it could go on forever. This is always a problem with candidates who lose who borrow a lot of money. It’s hard to raise money after you’ve lost."

The debt is so old that two of the four banks involved in the $2 million loan no longer exist. Ameritrust is now part of KeyBank in Cleveland, and Bank Ohio was bought by National City Bank in Cleveland. And as much money as Glenn and the campaign have paid, the interest on the original loans continues to spiral. The campaign has paid $1.85 million to the four banks, but still lists debts of $1.7 million in interest and $569,846 in principal.

Glenn, largely by funneling $450,000 of his own money into the campaign, has paid off dozens of small companies and individuals who had been owed money for years. Campaign officials say Glenn paid everyone owed $1,000 or less. For those owed more, he and the campaign paid at least $1,000, providing additional money as a settlement.

All that’s left is the bank loans and a handful of small companies and individuals the campaign says it no longer can locate. Some of them, such as the Hollenden House hotel in Cleveland, have long since vanished. But the campaign also says it owes $22,112.93 to the law firm of Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease, which is very much in existence in Columbus.

The banks have little to say about the loans. Kelly Wagner, a spokeswoman for National City Bank, declined to comment, citing privacy restrictions. Todd Bailey, a spokesman for Huntington Bank, would say only, "We are unable to discuss financial information."

But at least one official close to Glenn said that the banks have long since dropped the loans. The bookkeeper simply calculates the interest every three months and inserts it into the report.

* * *

The FEC in 1993 granted a waiver to Glenn to use his personal fortune to pay off the debts, allowing him to evade federal law that prevented candidates from contributing more than $50,000 to their campaigns. In 1997, however, the FEC rejected a proposed settlement that would have allowed Glenn to pay the banks the original $2 million and the banks to waive the interest. The FEC concluded the banks would be making an illegal corporate contribution to a federal campaign.

Glenn raised nearly $1 million from 1993 through 1995, paid off the small vendors in 1996, and made a final payment of $500,000 to the four banks in 1998. The payment was made shortly after Glenn became the oldest man to orbit the Earth, aboard the shuttle Discovery. . .

So where does George Soros figure in all of this?