Comments on: Clinton Presidential Campaign Financial Crunch: Hillary Lends Her Campaign $5 Million

By: Mike_P

Mike_P — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 07:12:57 +0000

"Ms. Inevitable" has faded to "Members of Senator Hillary Clinton's senior campaign staff have agreed to work without pay for the month of February. Communications Director Howard Wolfson called the move 'a show of solidarity with Hillary Clinton.'"
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/02...

Of course I believe. McCain was in the same position not long ago, (as well as Sen. Kerry in "04 - oh, never mind) so don't count her out yet, but dang, that headline's gotta sting as the news cycle's lead the day after Super Crazy Tsunami Tuesday.

By: Idiosyncrat

Idiosyncrat — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 03:47:18 +0000

StockBoy, I'm thrilled that scrappy candidates are giving the moneybags a run for their $$$, but just remember that Jon Corzine spent $60M of his own money to get a Senate seat representing NJ, and another $40M to get him into the governor's office there. It wasn't for POTUS, but it was an insane amount of money spent and ultimately successful…

By: StockBoySF

StockBoySF — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 03:05:49 +0000

Obama can totally spin the fact that Hillary is hurting for money. She was neck and neck with him in contributions at one point (didn't she receive more money than Obama through Dec. 31, 2007?). Now that donations aren't there he can say that the more people get to know him, the more support he gets because he has fresh idea. Whereas Hillary's downward spiral of support is proof that people are tired of her and tired of the same old politics in Washington DC.

Obama can point to other failed candidates who needed to finance their own campaigns. They win because they didn't have the support of the people.

We all know that money helps but it's not everything. Look at Romney, who has spent tons of his money, and Huckabee, who hasn't spent as much. It seems that Huckabee is on the ascendency because he has a certain appeal. It almost seems like there is a rule, the more of one's own money that one spends, the less likely you'll win. Though there have been some successful self-financed campaigns, but never one on this level.

By: CitizenKang

CitizenKang — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 01:53:19 +0000

The move could help with her grassroots fundraising. She’d be able to show potential donors than she will sacrifice as she’s asking them to sacrifice. One can imagine a fundraising appeal along the lines of: “Help Us Match Hillary!”

Sure, it'll help fundraising...Obama's

From his website:

The Clinton campaign just announced that Hillary and Bill Clinton injected $5 million of their personal fortune into her campaign a few days ago.

This is a dramatic move and a clear acknowledgement that our campaign has the momentum. We saw undeniable evidence of that as the results came in on February 5th, and Barack Obama won the most states and the most delegates.

The Clinton infusion of $5 million -- and there are reports it could end up being as much as $20 million -- will give them huge resources for the next set of primaries and caucuses.

Thanks to you, we have raised more than $3 million since the polls closed on February 5th. But we have no choice -- we must match their $5 million right now.

By: elrod

elrod — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 01:45:59 +0000

Hillary can paint herself as the underdog all she wants. But does she have the MECHANISM to raise lots of money on the internet? Are her supporters the type who would donate in large batches of small amounts? This is a bigger crisis than it appears because it gets to the identity of her campaign. She can play the underdog in the broad media sense – as the lonely woman fighter, as the victim of Matthewsesque chauvinism, as recipient of vile from the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. But she's never tried to turn that into financial capital before – especially in terms of small donations.