{"id":15459,"date":"2008-05-07T11:00:01","date_gmt":"2008-05-07T15:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15459.html"},"modified":"2008-05-07T11:00:01","modified_gmt":"2008-05-07T15:00:01","slug":"clinton-gives-herself-another-multi-million-dollar-loan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/clinton-gives-herself-another-multi-million-dollar-loan\/","title":{"rendered":"Clinton gives herself another multi-million dollar loan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three months ago, on Super Tuesday, 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

Shortly thereafter, the campaign acknowledged that Clinton had loaned herself $5 million. We learned this morning that it was the first in a series<\/a> of personal loans.<\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton loaned her campaign $6.4 million over the last month, CNN’s Candy Crowley has confirmed. The senator from New York previously loaned her campaign $5 million in February.<\/p>\n

According to the most recent campaign reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, Clinton began the month of April with close to $32 million cash-on hand. But only $9 million of that total could be spent during the primary season.<\/p>\n

The report also showed Clinton owed more than $10 million, meaning the Democratic presidential candidate was in the red even before she heavily stepped up television advertising ahead of the Pennsylvania primary in late April.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Clinton spokesperson Howard Wolfson fleshed out the details<\/a> of the loan on a conference call this morning: “‘Senator Clinton gave the campaign a $5 million loan on April 11th, a $1 million loan on May 1st, and a $425,000 loan on May 5th,’ Wolfson said, adding that she’d lent the campaign the money to keep pace with Obama’s spending on TV in Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Carolina. ‘The loans are a sign of Senator Clinton’s commitment to the race, to continuing the process, and to continuing to be competitive with Senator Obama on television and in other areas,’ Wolfson said.”<\/p>\n

Might there be additional loans on the way? Wolfson wouldn’t “rule out” the possibility.<\/p>\n

I suspect this is part of an effort to get all of the bad news out at once, rather than letting it drag out over days.
\n
\nNow, it’s worth noting that self-financing is not necessarily the end of the world. Wealthy candidates have done it before, and they’ll do it again.<\/p>\n

The problem with Clinton’s loans, however, is what it tells us about the state of her campaign.<\/p>\n

* She’s broke<\/i> — Clinton has raised enormous sums over the last 16 months, but she’s spent it all, and she’s still losing.<\/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?” (It’s hard enough to convince new donors who now believe Clinton has no chance.)<\/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 wishes he hadn’t said that.<\/p>\n

It’s possible that these loans will help rally supporters; that’s precisely what happened in February and Clinton was able to pay back her loans fairly quickly.<\/p>\n

But the results out of North Carolina and Indiana left the Clinton campaign in a very precarious spot, and the news of the loan(s) doesn’t help inspire confidence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three months ago, on Super Tuesday, 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. Shortly thereafter, the campaign acknowledged that Clinton had loaned herself $5 million. We learned this morning that it […]<\/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-15459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15459","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=15459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}