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Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Hillary is Broke


It’s not uncommon for any political candidate to loan their campaign money during any election but it is newsworthy when the supposed front runner in the Democrat race for the President campaign is broke. It was revealed today that Hillary Clinton had to loan her campaign five million bucks to keep going. Apparently, the donations have not kept up with the need for the campaign to spend during the run up for the Super Duper Tuesday election.

This just in from The Caucus over at the New York Times…

February 6, 2008, 3:25 pm
Clinton Lent Campaign $5 Million, Considers More
By Kate Phillips

Updated LOS ANGELES — Our colleague Patrick Healy tells us that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, facing big primaries against her rival Senator Barack Obama in places like Ohio and Texas, is weighing whether to lend her campaign money.

And in a quick update, her campaign has just confirmed that she’d already lent her coffers $5 million of her own money in late January. A just-issued statement from her camp:

The loan illustrates Senator Clinton’s commitment to this effort and to ensuring that our campaign has the resources it needs to compete and win across this nation. We have had one of our best fundraising efforts ever on the Web today and our Super Tuesday victories will only help in bringing more support for her candidacy.

More Updates: At her news conference this afternoon, Senator Clinton acknowledged the loan, saying: “I loaned the campaign $5 million from my money. That’s where I got the money. I did it because I believe very strongly in this campaign, and we had a great month fund-raising in January, broke all our records, but my opponent was able to raise more money and we intended to be competitive – and we were – and I think the results last night proved the wisdom of my investment.”
- New York Times, The Caucus

If you think running for office is cheap then talk to someone who is running for a local political office in your city or town. Most political candidates pay for all of the materials needed to run a campaign out of their own pocket. Running for Dog Catcher isn’t as easy a task as it used to be. Hell, Mitt Romney must have turned his head and coughed up ten times the amount Hillary Clinton has loaned her campaign but that isn’t news because Mitt is a mega hundred millionaire and a Republican.

What the real story is behind the words in the NY Times piece is that Hillary is running for broke and pulling out all the stops to get the job done. She might pull it off but the wave of donations running into the Obama camp hit $30 million in January alone. That is the real story along with the fact that many of Obama supporters have not maxed out their contributions to the primary election or the general election campaign.

One of the problems over at the Clinton camp is that they maxed out their credit card or political supporters early in the race and you simply can not tap that well again. Which leads anyone with a political mind to wonder if the Clinton donors are of the elite in the political party and thus a pulse on who is the Clinton base. Obama on the other hand has the numbers working for him with the ten and twenty five dollar donors donating in mass over and over again.

Tim Russert did a piece on the NBC Nightly News with his magic number boards and the remaining campaign states left. Based on polling numbers today the election process between Clinton and Obama would be a tie separated by three or four delegates going into the convention. One thing he did not figure into the equation was if the Clinton campaign did not have the money to place ads on the air or pay staffers in those states.

This race is by far not over.

Papamoka
Cross posted at Michael Linn Jones and Bring IT ON!

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3 Comments:

Blogger B.J. said...

The funny thing is, according to reporting, Obama’s supporters are wine-sippers and latte drinkers, while Clinton is “the working-class candidate.” Perhaps a lot of the people who belive in her are like me and unable to contribute. Amazingly, according to MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann last night, each Democratic candidate got 7 million and chump change votes on Super Tuesday! Isn’t that wonderful? Now, if that many people voted for each, doesn’t it stand to reason which one has the support of the so-called elite?

4:22 AM  
Blogger Papamoka said...

Have you seen the spike in democrat voters too BJ? It seems that the Dem's are voting in huge numbers and the Publican's are sleeping? I'm loving it!

4:21 PM  
Blogger B.J. said...

Like the Blues Brothers, we're on "a mission from God," LOL. McCain's reception at the C-PAC meeting yesterday was the most pathetic political display I've ever seen. (You hate him, but clap and cheer!) Romney shocked me. Immediate speculation over a McCain-Huckabee ticket. Can you think of anything scarier? I sat down and had a little talk with myself and donated a little money to my candidate. I recorded it in my budget as "investment," LOL. If we can't win the WH this time, we had better hang it up. G'day!

5:40 AM  

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