The big news on Super Wednesday is that Hillary (and/or/but not Bill, their assets are combined right?) loaned her campaign $5,000,000 cash late last month. She took in an impressive $13.5 million in January but it is nowhere near what Obama raised, averaging better than a million a day. Now that she's won a few big states yesterday the spigots are opening up for her again, but will it be enough to compete....and what does this news say about her campaign?
From TPM:
This morning, Mark Halperin floated an intriguing question: Are the Clintons financing Hillary's campaign with their own money?
Now the Clinton campaign has finally answered: Yes, they are. Hillary spokesperson Howard Wolfson sends over the following:
Late last month Senator Clinton loaned her campaign $5 million.The loan illustrates Sen. 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.The revelation suggests another emerging dynamic in the race: Now that the campaigns are committed to grinding it out for weeks and weeks, perhaps all the way until the convention. The Hillary camp faces the prospect of being dramatically outspent by the Obama campaign, which has enjoyed huge fundraising success.
It sounds Romney-esque to me that she needs to float a huge sum of cash like this, though she is nothing like Romney in that she is a competitive candidate. Nevertheless, I thought that Democrats should be looking for a people-powered candidate instead of one that needs to (partly) finance their campaign.
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