{"id":15306,"date":"2008-04-23T09:15:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-23T13:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15306.html"},"modified":"2008-04-23T09:15:00","modified_gmt":"2008-04-23T13:15:00","slug":"clinton-capitalizes-contest-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/clinton-capitalizes-contest-continues\/","title":{"rendered":"Clinton capitalizes, contest continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shortly after the polls closed in Pennsylvania last night, Marc Ambinder noted<\/a> that the one metric that really<\/i> mattered wasn’t delegates or popular votes, but money. Most notably, Hillary Clinton’s lack of it.<\/p>\n

Clinton was easily outspent in Pennsylvania — by most measures, by more than a 2-to-1 margin — but she started with far less money, and had to invest heavily to secure a victory. Indeed, she didn’t have a choice — Obama could afford to lose Pennsylvania and keep on going, Clinton couldn’t. The investment clearly paid off — she won by a decisive margin — but it came at a price; she’s broke.<\/p>\n

Or rather, she was.<\/p>\n

Ambinder explained<\/a>:<\/p>\n

More important than anything she’ll do over the next few days, Clinton will try to use tonight’s results to raise money through the net. (Notice the banner behind the stage at her victory party. It says HillaryClinton.com for a reason.)<\/p>\n

If the margin of victory is big enough to allow her campaign to raise two or three million dollars in 48 hours, then her supporters are convinced that she still has a shot. Her margin was big enough.<\/p>\n

If she can’t raise money off of her margin, then her supporters are resigned to her defeat.
\nShe needs money to continue. If she runs out of money, she won’t be able to continue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That “two or three million dollars” line turned out to be just right. Clinton apparently raised $2.5 million.<\/p>\n

It’s a reminder, in case there were any doubts, that the race will continue to rage on at the level and pace we’ve become accustomed to over the last several weeks.
\n
\nThe Washington Post’s Dan Balz noted today<\/a>, “Clinton’s campaign is nearly broke, whereas Obama has an enormous amount of money in the bank to throw into the next two contests and beyond.”<\/p>\n

That’s largely true, but it’s worth keeping in mind that Clinton continues to have a sizable base of supporters who don’t want the Democratic race to end anytime soon. Campaign spokesman Phil Singer said<\/a> last night, “As of 11:30 p.m. tonight, we are at nearly $2.5 million since PA was called for HRC — 80% of that money is coming from new donors to the campaign. It\u2019s our best night ever.”<\/p>\n

Assuming those figures are accurate, it’s pretty extraordinary. $2.5 million in three hours — for a candidacy that still has a hard-to-imagine path to the nomination, after nearly 16 months of campaigning — points to a candidate who will be able to fight very aggressively, indefinitely.<\/p>\n

This isn’t to say the campaign’s financial difficulties are over. Last night, during her victory speech, Clinton told<\/a> the assembled crowd, “We can only keep winning if we can keep competing with an opponent who outspends us so massively. So I hope you\u2019ll go to HillaryClinton.com and show your support tonight, because the future of this campaign is in your hands.”<\/p>\n

It was, I believe, the first time Clinton has used a victory speech to ask for more money. Apparently, it worked.<\/p>\n

Keep an eye on these fundraising numbers, though. Last night was huge for the Clinton campaign, but they’ll need to keep it going because Obama will almost certainly try to use his financial advantage (again) to end the race as quickly as he possibly can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shortly after the polls closed in Pennsylvania last night, Marc Ambinder noted that the one metric that really mattered wasn’t delegates or popular votes, but money. Most notably, Hillary Clinton’s lack of it. Clinton was easily outspent in Pennsylvania — by most measures, by more than a 2-to-1 margin — but she started with far […]<\/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-15306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15306","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=15306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}