Q: What is the difference between suspending a presidential campaign and ending one?
—Kathy McManus, Gainesville
A: Suspending a political campaign provides options for a candidate who might want to re-enter a race.
Candidates with suspended campaigns can still raise money, pay staff, retire debts and “receive federal matching funds, if the candidate has previously qualified for them,” CNN wrote in 2012.
“It is harder to raise money when you’re out rather than thinking about getting out,” former Federal Election Commission associate general counsel Kenneth Gross told the Wall Street Journal.
Candidates with suspended campaigns also keep their delegates, but those who officially drop out,must “forfeit certain delegates, usually statewide delegates,” CNN wrote.
The FEC doesn’t consider a campaign over until “its committee settles its debt and transfers leftover funds out of its coffers,” the Wall Street Journal wrote.
Q: We all know that Pennsylvania Avenue is the address of the White House. How and why was Pennsylvania chosen over the other original colonies for that honor?
—Kathy McDonough, Peachtree Corners
A: The National Park Service has two theories why the street is named for Pennsylvania, although "no one is sure why it was named for the Keystone State," it writes.
The road could have been named for Pennsylvania because the nation’s capital was moved from Philadelphia to Washington in 1800.
The other theory is that the “city’s diagonal avenues,” which are named for states, run in a “logical north to south progression,” the park service wrote.
Virginia and Maryland avenues are south of Pennsylvania Avenue and New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts avenues are north of it.
Andy Johnston with Fast Copy News Service wrote this column. Do you have a question? We’ll try to get the answer. Call 404-222-2002 or email q&a@ajc.com (include name, phone and city).
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