Monday, June 02, 2008

Hillary's denouement?

Marc Ambinder has been a touchstone of inside information on the Presidential campaign and I tend to agree with his speculation that Hillary will not drop out tomorrow night. But the fact that she's summoning "major donors" leads me to believe that Hillary's endgame is not political, but financial.

Hillary's campaign debt is now over $20 million, including $11 million of her own money. She wants that money back. So tomorrow night after the polls have closed and all the superdelegates gather behind Obama, I think Hillary's going to make a none-too-subtle play to shake down the Democratic party. There will be a bit of humble "help me out" with the undercurrent of "if you don't I'm taking this to Denver."

Because there are two things to remember: the Clintons love their money and they expect other people to pay for their expenses.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

And this makes her a very different animal from George W. Bush and his oil bailouts and baseball windfall how? Or Ronald Reagan and his $2 million Japanese speeches and wife's complimentary designer wardrobe... or Lyndon Johnson and his finagled TV station license and oil payoffs... or JFK and his ever-growing trust fund... or...

"She likes money"? Isn't this a personal indictment about as revelatory as "that guy will say anything to get elected"?

Eric said...

I guess the difference is that all those things you cite were NOT on the public dime. As the latter link indicates, even with >$100 million in income, Bill Clinton has used (abused?) his ex-President perks so that he spends more than all other ex-Presidents combined.

Anonymous said...

Wow... all two of them?