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NYTimes
BRIAN STELTER
1/12/12

Colbert for President: A Run or a Comedy Riff?

Mr. Colbert, the Comedy Central television host,
has made jokes at the expense of super PACs for months
— forming his own group, soliciting money for it, then running an ad that featured Buddy Roemer,
a long-shot candidate who has criticized the Supreme Court decision that allows
the existence of the free-spending PACs so long as they do not explicitly coordinate with candidates.

On Thursday night’s “Colbert Report,” Mr. Colbert took it a big step further,
handing control of his group to his friend and fellow host Jon Stewart
so that he can legally run for president, or at least pretend to.
Mr. Colbert, who has comically flirted with — and mocked the possibility of
— runs for political office before, said he would form an “exploratory committee
for president of the United States of South Carolina.”
<snip>
“You cannot be a candidate and run a super PAC. That would be coordinating with yourself,”
Trevor Potter, Mr. Colbert’s lawyer and a former chairman
of the Federal Election Commission, told him on Thursday’s show.
But “you could have it run by somebody else,” even a friend or business partner, Mr. Potter said
— illuminating what critics say is an inappropriate loophole in the law.

So Mr. Colbert brought out Mr. Stewart, the host of “The Daily Show,”
who played along with the joke, saying, “I’d be honored to” help.
Sarcastically emphasizing that they would not coordinate Mr. Colbert’s real
or imagined presidential race with Mr. Stewart’s ad spending, Mr. Colbert said
“From now on, I will have to talk about my plans on my TV show.”
Mr. Stewart, whose show immediately precedes Mr. Colbert’s
at 11 p.m., shot back, “I don’t even know when it’s on.”

When Mr. Potter told the two comedians that “being business partners
does not count as coordination, legally,” there were groans of disgust
from some in the studio audience.<snip>

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