Danville's Jeff Clark wooing McKelvey?

Amid festival food and carnival rides, Jeff Clark stood beneath a tent at a campaign table last Sunday requesting signatures for his petition to run as an independent against freshman Rep. Tom Perriello, D-5th District.

The tent and table, however, advertised another name — Republican primary candidate Jim McKelvey.

A walk past 122 S. Union St. in downtown Danville shows McKelvey’s campaign signs in the window below signage for “American Water Testing,” Clark’s residential and commercial inspection business. McKelvey’s campaign manager, Brian O’Connor, said Clark had extra office space and offered McKelvey a place for his downtown headquarters.

Clark has until 7 p.m. June 8 — the same time Republican primary polls close — to get his name on the November ballot. But Clark is opposed to presumptive frontrunner state Sen. Robert Hurt and has said he will drop his campaign if any of the other six Republican candidates win June 8.

If Hurt wins, McKelvey has said he would throw his support behind a third party candidate in the general election rather than support Hurt. O’Connor would not say definitively whether Clark was the independent candidate McKelvey would support if he does not win the primary, but Clark is the only declared independent.

“(McKelvey) wants a strong constitutional conservative to be running for congress in the 5th (District),” O’Connor said.

Despite their outward cooperation, Clark would not publicly support McKelvey, either. He acknowledged he liked what McKelvey stood for, but said he would refrain from making an endorsement in the primary.

“I’m not endorsing any candidate,” he said. “I made that pledge to the other six (Republican primary candidates) — if they get the nomination, I will drop my candidacy and put my support behind them and do whatever I can to help them get elected.”

Although there are no regulations against candidates sharing resources, federal election campaign finance laws state that a candidate committee can only make contributions — in cash or in-kind — to another candidate committee up to $2,000 per primary or general election.

Federal Election Commission spokesperson Christian Hilliard explained that if one candidate is sharing office space with another, they must pay fair market value for their share of the rent, or else it is considered an in-kind donation.

Clark said he was not charging rent for the space, but O’Connor said he did not expect the value of the space to surpass $2,000 in rent for the time they will occupy it.

“Legally we’ll have to show it as an in-kind contribution,” O’Connor said.

Building support for

an independent run

McKelvey is not the only GOP candidate Clark has been courting, should Hurt win the nomination. Clark said he has been in touch with all six candidates, requesting their support for the general election.

“We’ve been speaking with the other campaigns,” Clark said. “We think that we will be able to pick up some support from them, not only from a monetary point of view but from a network point of view.”

Clark can plunder other candidates’ volunteer and donor networks if he chooses, but candidates cannot simply fork over their leftover campaign cash once an election is over.

Hilliard said that the same rule still applies — per federal law, one candidate committee can only donate up to $2,000 to another candidate committee. An individual can give up to $2,400. In other words, a candidate such as Jim McKelvey, with access to a $500,000 line of credit for his campaign, cannot fund Clark’s campaign with any leftover money.

McKelvey made news earlier this year for the whopping contribution, but has since had to clarify how he reports the transaction with the FEC — as a line of credit, rather than a loan. He is able to draw up to $500,000 from the bank, but only what he takes out is counted as his cash on hand. His first quarter finance report went from showing nearly $442,000 cash on hand to $761.

“It was always a line of credit,” O’Connor said. “It was just the way that the FEC wanted it reported. A line of credit is better for us because you can keep the money where it’s getting the interest rather than putting it in your campaign account. It’s a better business decision.”

Isaac Wood, political analyst at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said McKelvey — or any candidate — could hypothetically support Clark through independent expenditures. Without consulting with the candidate, a person could potentially air his own TV ads supporting another candidate.

“That’s certainly legal,” Wood said. “It’s not particularly common for an individual to do that … It’s more likely that (Clark) wants access to McKelvey’s campaign experience and supporters.”

Clark said he was aware of those finance laws restricting donations and hoped to corral the support others have built — rather than their campaign coffers — into his campaign to oppose both Hurt and Perriello.

We would like to see support from the other candidates who believe Robert Hurt is the wrong man for the job,” he said. “If you fundamentally oppose him and think he’s the wrong guy, he doesn’t magically become the right guy on the morning of June 9.”

As of the last campaign finance reporting deadline March 31, Clark had not raised any money. He said his campaign has been focusing on getting the necessary signatures and plans to go into fundraising mode after the primary.

“He’s a man without a political base,” Wood said of Clark. “He needs to find some supporters and some money quickly. I think it’s savvy to look at these other candidates, especially ones that are gonna have a whole bunch of momentum and supporters and nothing to do with it in three weeks’ time.”