FEC declares Kid Rock couldn't have run for senate as "Kid Rock," thus clearing him of federal complaints

We all had a brief chuckle when Confederate flag-loving rap-rocker Kid Rock teased a Michigan Senate run, then a spiraling onset of gut-roiling horror when we realized he’d probably win. The artist otherwise known as Bob Ritchie eventually revealed that the whole thing was a publicity stunt, but not before he forced us to imagine him “standing on the desk of the Oval Office like a G” and “holdin’ my dick ready to address the whole country.”

One should be punished for making us endure such torture, but The Washington Post reports that the FEC has dismissed a complaint brought against the rocker by election watchdog group Common Cause. Last year, Common Cause objected to Ritchie’s selling merch with slogans like “Kid Rock For Senate ’18", citing that the Federal Election Campaign Act requires candidates to track and report donations and campaign contributions. Ritchie fired back by telling them to (sigh) go fuck themselves.

In a report that must’ve made whoever wrote it disappear into their liquor cabinet for a few days, the FEC says that Ritchie couldn’t have run under the name “Kid Rock,” and that his comments on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM radio show saying he wouldn’t run were enough to exonerate him. Furthermore, they note he didn’t seem “to have taken even the most basic steps to become a candidate.” Quelle surprise.

Earlier this year, he donated the money he made shilling his “campaign” merch to CRNC Action, a conservative voter-registration group affiliated with the College Republicans. He also campaigned for Trump-approved candidate John James, who lost to incumbent Debbie Stabenow.

This, of course, hasn’t stopped people from thinking that Kid Rock is now a senator.