faboo mama

WaPo is reporting that the Clinton’s campaign is $20M in debt.

$20M.

And they want back in to the WH?

There’s nothing in the article that says anything beyond Wolfson’s confirmation of the number. We have no idea if that includes the $12M the Clinton’s loaned themselves. Terry McAuliffe was on Meet the Press this morning and said:

A top Clinton adviser this morning said that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is open to the possibility of loaning her campaign more money to continue in the race.

Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton campaign chairman, told Tim Russert on “Meet the Press” that he spoke to Clinton about the possibility of contributing more money and “she said that she would be willing to do it.” However, McAuliffe insists, “We haven’t needed it.”

Russert pressed the issue, asking McAuliffe if the Clintons will be able to repay all debts after the campaign is over. “We plan on it,” he replied.

Must be nice to have that kind of change. Let’s put this in perspective: With their first loan, the Clinton’s could have paid off my house, bills and bought me a new car and it would still have been well under 10% of what they loaned themselves.

What a working class family.

According to The Page, Obama agreed to two more debates.  He agreed to give The Clinton’s 2 90 minutes shots of free publicity.  That’s some bullshit. One of them is even in Ohio where she really needs the free publicity.  Who in the halibut on the Obama team thought this was a good idea.  Let her fly her ass all over the country and campaign.  They got money.  You know, the Obama team better not start buying her ads.  Let the GOP do that.  Again.

You know what?  He better bring it.  He needs to be the awesome Obama of the last debate, not the polite stutterer of the first debates.  Because remember, she was complaining about the number of debates back in August.  It wasn’t until she had to dig into her pocketbook that free publicity more debates was important.

That’s what I woke to this morning. Sweet. MSNBC put up a story about this:

NEW ORLEANS - Democratic Sen. Barack Obama has raised $7.2 million for his presidential campaign since the first polls closed on Super Tuesday night, his campaign said Thursday, a remarkable figure that is causing concern among supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I got an email from the Clinton’s campaign this morning:

Let’s meet this moment with bold action worthy of those who have put their faith in us. We are setting a big goal for the next three days: raise $3 million to fund our history-making campaign.

Contribute today to help us reach $3 million in three days.

Keep in mind that was sent before it was disclosed that the Clinton’s loaned $5M of their own money to their campaign.

Later in the day, a blog post was entered on the Obama website:

The Clinton infusion of $5 million — and there are reports it could end up being as much as $20 million — will give them huge resources for the next set of primaries and caucuses.

Thanks to you, we have raised more than $3 million since the polls closed on February 5th. But we have no choice — we must match their $5 million right now.

Can you believe that? The Clinton campaign wants to raise in 3 days what the Obama campaign raised in less than15 hours.

UPDATE: I was over at The Field and it seems that the $5M The Clinton’s gave their campaign was already spent. They tried to make it like the $5M was just to push on through these next few states, but I guess it wasn’t.

Considering that Clinton began the month of January, according to Federal Elections Commission filings, with exactly $5 million in unpaid debts (including $1.9 million to pollster Mark Penn’s consulting firm), and the acknowledgement in Clinton’s statement today that the money was used to campaign (and presumably purchase television ads) in Tsunami Tuesday states, guess what? That bundle of five million smackers is already gone.

[snip]

It’s no great mystery why the Clinton campaign didn’t announce the $5 million loan before voters went to the polls yesterday. But the fact that it all went down last week means that the money has already been spent, and the Clinton campaign is back in the red all over again.

Remember the Jan. 31st debates? At the end of the debate, Sen. Clinton plugged her TV show and website. Many of us were left scratching our heads. That was unbecoming of a presumptive frontrunner and some of us were trying to figure out how much that hour buy cost the campaign. Considering that large swaths of America don’t even have cable, let alone the Hallmark channel, it was a very optimistic buy. Now, we understand why.

As for the Obama campaign, well you should just check this graphic:

I snagged this from the donation page at 9:23pm PST.

And yes, I love the first two lines a little more than the dollar amount.  To see current totals, go to the main info page.  As of 9:40pmPST the total is now $6,173,615.

See, this is why you don’t tap out your big donors a year before any meaningful election. The Clinton’s campaign already took a page from the Romney Book of Campaign Financing and it seems that now they’re referencing the Giuliani Book of Belt Tightening:

SOURCE: THEY HAVE “VOLUNTARILY CHOSEN TO WORK WITHOUT PAY THIS MONTH” AS PART OF CLINTON CASH CRUNCH AGAINST OBAMA MOOLA FACTORY.
Includes campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle.

That’s the entire story. So far. We’ll see if anyone picks it up in the next few hours and what tomorrow’s headlines look like.

Confirmed by CNN:

UPDATE: CNN’s Candy Crowley confirms some senior Clinton campaign staff members have agreed to go without pay for a month.

From MSNBC:

WASHINGTON - Some of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign staff have voluntarily chosen to work without pay this month, NBC News confirmed Wednesday.

WHOA!

It’s been confirmed that the Clinton’s have “loaned” their campaign $5M at the end of January.   From Marc Ambinder:

“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.”

That makes her ploy of a debate a week look even more desperate for free publicity.  I don’t think Obama should give in to this debate strategy.  They ignored small donors at her own peril.  They could have tapped into the upper-middle class black voter checkbook, but they had to go all KKK (again) on black people.  Over at Booman Tribune, Real History Lisa writes:

If I were on Obama’s campaign, I’d suggest he spin it like this:

Of course Hillary wants more debates. That’s free advertising, and she can’t match us in fundraising. I don’t see the point in giving her any free advertising, especially when she’s already the better known candidate.

We’ve debated. We’ve both got our platforms and positions posted.

I want to spend time with the people who have contributed to my campaign. She wants to spend time with the pundits to get free airtime.

Sorry, Hillary, I can’t help you there. I’ve got a campaign to run. You’re on your own.

Damn skippy.