THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Carly Failorina, erstwhile Destroyer of Corporations, is a boldly dishonest woman. Having initially made her mark on the public attention with a whopping big lie about Planned Parenthood, she backed it up with some more lies when everyone pointed out she was lying. And taking that attitude one step further, she actively and openly coordinates her campaign with her SuperPAC.

The Federal Election Commission forbids direct coordination between campaigns and super PACs, lest candidates effectively rely almost entirely on the huge, unlimited donations of a small number of billionaires. But in 2016, the groups are aggressively exploiting gray areas and loopholes in the rules, few of which the commission – deadlocked with its three Republican and three Democratic members – has hastened to close.

One of the most important openings is the simplest: Candidates and super PACs are free to coordinate their plans if the information is shared in public view.

That exception has taken on extraordinary power in the post-Internet, post-Citizens United campaign world, where candidates can give super PACs B-roll for campaign ads by posting video on YouTube, and campaign managers can signal a preference for positive advertising by alerting their Twitter followers.

Mrs. Fiorina and other candidates, who have depended the most on unlimited money raised by allied super PACs, have taken it a step further: making available advance travel schedules, then letting the outside groups arrange and finance the events.

Under the rules, Mrs. Fiorina’s super PAC, whose name makes it sound anything but independent – Carly for America – could not even call her campaign staff members to see where and when she is headed next. But Mrs. Fiorina has cleverly sidestepped that prohibition: Her campaign has created a public Google calendar, which it updates weeks into the future, showing the events she has planned.

“Essentially, it inoculates a case of coordination by making it public,” explained Kenneth A. Gross, a lawyer who specializes in campaign finance. “As long as it’s not hidden in a ‘Where’s Waldo’ game and meets a reasonable definition of being public, it is a way to avoid running afoul of the coordination rules.”

Mrs. Fiorina, whose calendar already shows she plans to be in Iowa on Halloween, is not the only candidate to hit on this workaround. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky also have public calendars detailing their travels. A super PAC could pay for costly polling, then publish it where the campaign could review it free of charge, so long as anyone else could, too.

Failorina, Huckabooboo and Paul all use this trick. It seems like an easy way to finance candidates who can't rely on donations from their supporters because they have none. And it fits so well into their characters.