Nader campaign, last week:
Presidential candidate Ralph Nader is shunning help from Republicans to get on Michigan’s ballot as an independent candidate.
[…]
To qualify as an independent candidate, Nader needed to submit 30,000 signatures by Thursday. State Republicans had said they would make sure he had enough signatures if he wanted to get on the ballot as an independent.
“We have not taken any signatures from them. We won’t take any signatures from them,” [Nader spokesman Kevin] Zeese said.
Nader campaign, this week:
In an about-face, Ralph Nader decided Monday to accept thousands of petition signatures collected by Michigan Republicans if that was the only way he could qualify for the state’s presidential ballot.
In one potentially interesting twist, Dems in Michigan may have noticed a legal problem with Nader’s “partnership” with the GOP.
Michigan Republicans worked so diligently to collect signatures for Nader, they ended up with 43,000 signatures — far more than the 30,000 needed. But as Dems are noting, campaign finance laws prohibit the state GOP from spending more than $5,000 to help Nader. If the party exceeded that limit in collecting those signatures, the Michigan GOP could face penalties from the FEC.
Of course, that wouldn’t come until well after the election, at which point it’d be too late.