I heard an interesting political theory being discussed on the radio today, and after some thought, I think it’s worthy of passing along.

As I posted earlier, Boston (the host city of the upcoming Democratic national convention) is having union troubles with it’s police force. They’ve been holding “informational pickets” that have disrupted construction at the Fleet Center, upstaged the mayor’s State Of The City address, and in general made nuisances of themselves. The fact that Boston’s Mayor Thomas Menino had pledged to the Democratic National Committee to settle the contract issue before the convention gave the police tremendous leverage.

Today the U.S. Conference of Mayors was meeting in Boston. John Kerry was scheduled to speak to them about his policies that would affect them. However, the police held another “informational picket” at the meeting, and Kerry declined to cross the line and address the mayors. Instead, Republican Governor Mitt Romney stepped in to speak.

Now, it was my theory about the police contract issue was that Kerry would swoop in just before the convention and arrange a settlement, making himself the hero to all involved. But now another theory has emerged, and I think I might have to set aside my own hunch and give this one some serious consideration…

Back in May Kerry’s campaign floated the balloon that he might not accept the nomination at the convention. Under the current campaign finance laws, once he accepts the nomination, he can no longer spend his “primary” money and is limited to his “campaign” money. This puts him at a financial disadvantage to Bush, whose convention isn’t until several weeks later. There was a huge kerfuffle about this, with Republicans threatening to hold their own “campaign events” and demand equal coverage with the non-nominating convention. It was promptly withdrawn.

But now Kerry has his excuse, practically tailor-made. The police have already demonstrated their willingness to target the convention with their protests. Imagine this scenario:

The convention votes to give the nomination to Kerry. He pulls up in his limousine to accept (by tradition, candidates don’t show up until it’s time to accept the nomination), gets out, sees the picket line, and announces that he will not cross the line, not even to accept the nomination for President of the United States.

At a later date (and several million dollars of “primary” money of campaign ads and expenses), Kerry accepts the nomination and starts spending his “election” money, having eliminated at least some of Bush’s advantage.

Hey, stranger things have happened…

J.

Update: The Boston Police Patrolmn's Association has announced that, because Kerry respected their picket line Monday, they will not be disrupting the Democratic National Convention. In honor of Michael Moore's box office success this weekend, though, I'm not going to let something as stupid as facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory, especially when the "fact" in question is the promise of a labor union.