Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has an ace up his sleeve - or, more accurately, in his check book - if both the race for the Republican presidential nomination and the money get tight early next year: His net worth of $500 million.

And, thanks to the way the "Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act" of 2002 was written, he can inject some of his millions into the race and his campaign rivals can't do a thing about it. Well, other than carp and complain and run ads attacking him for trying to "buy" the election. 

It's just another way that Arizona Sen. John McCain may have shot holes in his presidential hopes with passage of the BCRA, more commonly known as "McCain-Feingold," after its two primary Senate sponsors, McCain and Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold.

According to this article from The Hill, the provision in McCain-Feingold that allows congressional candidates to accept contributions in excess of usual limits when facing a wealthy self-funding opponent doesn't apply to presidential campaigns, only to Senate and House races.

The so-called "Millionaires’ Amendment" allows a candidate facing a wealthy opponent who puts a large amount of personal funds into their campaign to accept much-larger donations from from individual donors than the standard $2,300 limit.

The Millionaires’ Amendment greatly affects campaign strategy in races involving a wealthy candidate willing to self-fund. Typical campaign fund-raising strategy for candidates facing a wealthy opponent who might self-fund is to identify donors capable of and willing to donate the larger amounts, and have them on speed-dial, or even have them write checks in advance that will only be deposited - immediately - if the wealthy candidate triggers the higher limit.

The counter-strategy, which I saw demonstrated in the U.S. Senate race in Tennessee between Democrat Harold Ford Jr. and Republican (and eventual winner) Bob Corker, is for the wealthy candidate (in this case, Corker) to wait until very near the end of the campaign to dump in the personal millions - but to strategize, campaign and advance-media-buy knowing the money will be there - so that the other side has little time to respond.

The Federal Election Commission has web pages of info on the Millionaires' Amendment, including the complex formula by which the triggers and higher limits are calculated for both House and Senate races.

Romney doesn't have to make such calculations - that's why he began his presidential run by writing his campaign a check for $2.3 million as seed capital to get his campaign venture off the ground in a big way.