{"id":14496,"date":"2008-02-07T08:30:32","date_gmt":"2008-02-07T13:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/14496.html"},"modified":"2008-02-07T08:30:32","modified_gmt":"2008-02-07T13:30:32","slug":"hillary-clintons-unexpected-and-inconvenient-money-troubles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/hillary-clintons-unexpected-and-inconvenient-money-troubles\/","title":{"rendered":"Hillary Clinton’s unexpected (and inconvenient) money troubles"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a rally in Manhattan on Tuesday night, Terry McAuliffe, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, was asked about the state of the candidate’s finances. “Look, if there’s one thing Hillary Clinton doesn’t have to worry about, it’s money,” McAuliffe said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At the time, that certainly made sense. Clinton raised over $100 million in 2007, outpacing every candidate in both parties. She’s generally considered one of the more prodigious fundraisers in the party, and while her $13.5 million haul in January wasn’t as impressive as Barack Obama’s monthly total, it wasn’t too shabby, either.<\/p>\n

Which is why it came as such a big surprise to the political world late yesterday when Clinton aides conceded that the senator found it necessary to loan her campaign $5 million<\/a> of her own money.<\/p>\n

At her campaign headquarters in Arlington, Clinton defended her maneuver, executed last month but kept under wraps until yesterday, to add money to her campaign coffers. News of the $5 million transfer came as a surprise to Clinton donors who had assumed her campaign, which raised $100 million last year, would keep pace with Obama’s. Earlier this month, Obama announced that he had raised $32 million in January alone, and aides said he took in an additional $3.5 million yesterday.<\/p>\n

Clinton said she moved her own money last month “because I believe very strongly in this campaign.” […]<\/p>\n

Terence R. McAuliffe, Clinton’s campaign chairman, said the team had raised at least $13 million in January, and noted that figure did not include the loan.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Objectively, it’s hard to spin this as anything but a disconcerting development for the Clinton campaign, which should have flush coffers right now.<\/p>\n

What’s more, it gets worse.
\n
\nApparently hoping to get all of the bad news out at once, officials also acknowledged yesterday that some senior Clinton campaign staff members have agreed to go without pay for a month, which as we’ve discussed before with candidates like Rudy Giuliani, is almost always a very bad sign about the financial status of a campaign.<\/p>\n

For that matter, campaign aides refused to rule out the possibility that additional self-loans may be on the way. In fact, the NYT noted<\/a> that might come sooner, rather than later.<\/p>\n

Joe Trippi, an adviser to John Edwards, said the loan is a sign of trouble. “It means she’s at a tremendous disadvantage moving forward. The worst thing to be is an 800-pound gorilla who’s out of money. The cultural shock for the campaign is incredible.”<\/p>\n

There are no shortage of angles to this, but here are the points to consider:<\/p>\n

* Spending<\/i> — Considering how much money Clinton has raised over the last year, the fact that she’s facing difficulties suggests she’s spent almost every dime she’s received. If the spending had knocked Obama out of the race, it would have been worth it, but instead, after spending all of that money, she’s still effectively tied with Obama in the delegate race. (My hunch is the campaign spent with the expectation that the race for the nomination would be over by Feb. 5.)<\/p>\n

* Maxed-Out Donors<\/i> — Many of Clinton’s top contributors have probably already given the legal limit, making it impossible for the campaign to go back to those donors now that she’s in trouble.<\/p>\n

* Undermined Pitch<\/i> — It’s harder to reach out to new donors if they’re thinking, “Why contribute if the Clintons are already self-financing?”<\/p>\n

* Hypocrisy<\/i> — Bill Clinton recently criticized<\/a> candidates who self-finance, and suggested the very approach undermines the spirit of campaign-finance laws. I’m sure he now wishes he hadn’t said that.<\/p>\n

* Momentum changer?<\/i> — If Obama’s fundraising is soaring, and Clinton’s is lacking, it feeds the perception that Democratic donors are making their move.<\/p>\n

* Inviting scrutiny<\/i> — The campaign emphasized yesterday that the $5 million came from the senator, not her husband. Still, this is bound to renew interest in scrutinizing the Clintons’ finances (donors to the Clinton library, analysis of the paid speeches, etc.).<\/p>\n

* Obama capitalizing<\/i> — It didn’t take long for the Obama campaign to respond to the Clinton loan by appealing to his donor base to help respond. The strategy seems to be working nicely; Obama has raised a very impressive $6.8 million<\/a> since the polls closed on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Now, it’s worth noting that the news isn’t all<\/i> bad for the Clinton campaign. It’s possible that these financial troubles will help rally supporters. It’s even more likely that the difficulties will make it easier for the campaign to position Clinton as something of an underdog.<\/p>\n

But spin aside, this isn’t how the Clinton campaign wanted to spend the days following Super Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a rally in Manhattan on Tuesday night, Terry McAuliffe, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, was asked about the state of the candidate’s finances. “Look, if there’s one thing Hillary Clinton doesn’t have to worry about, it’s money,” McAuliffe said. At the time, that certainly made sense. Clinton raised over $100 million in 2007, outpacing every […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}