That's the question this Wired story is looking at. This week the Paul campaign is launching a giant airship that will go up and down the East coast. A bit obnoxious perhaps, but innovation has so far worked for Paul.

Here's the problem though:

What makes the effort special (aside from the whole blimp thing) is that it's not being run by the Ron Paul campaign, nor is it funded by a tax-exempt "527" group, nor by a political action committee, or PAC. Instead, it's spearheaded by a newly formed for-profit corporation named Liberty Political Advertising. That for-profit status means that donors are really "customers" and thus can seemingly contribute as much money as they want, irrespective of the $2,300 annual limit on individual contributions to a primary campaign. They can also disregard the $5,000 limit on contributions to a PAC promoting a candidate.

At least, that's the theory. But Paul Ryan, an attorney at the Campaign Legal Center, which advocates for strict enforcement of campaign finance reform law, says the blimp project may not fly with regulators.

"It's certainly an innovative approach, and it definitely gets points for creativity," says Ryan. But the website "makes it sound like, 'If we don't want to be a PAC, we don't have to be.' Well, that's not really the way the law works."

Ryan doesn't say it of course, but you get the sense that the campaign-finance cops are just drooling to ground the Paul blimp, which would be a shame. It's always a lot of fun to see campaigns create inventive ways to get around McCain-Feingold.