AMERICAblog: There needs to be a cost for the continued negative attacks and wasteful spending from the Clinton campaign
Chris From Maine
· 1 year ago
Hillary should pay her own debt. She spent the money, she should have to pay it back.
She will have plenty of time to make that money back when Obama is President.
Bush_Bites
· 1 year ago
Bob Herbert has a good one today:
The last time the Clintons had to make a big exit was at the end of Bill Clinton’s second term as president — and they made a complete and utter hash of that historic moment. Having survived the Monica Lewinsky ordeal, you might have thought the Clintons would be on their best behavior.
Instead, a huge scandal erupted when it became known that Mrs. Clinton’s brothers, Tony and Hugh Rodham, had lobbied the president on behalf of criminals who then received presidential pardons or a sentence commutation from Mr. Clinton.
Tony Rodham helped get a pardon for a Tennessee couple that had hired him as a consultant and paid or loaned him hundreds of thousands of dollars. Over the protests of the Justice Department, President Clinton pardoned the couple, Edgar Allen Gregory Jr. and his wife, Vonna Jo, who had been convicted of bank fraud in Alabama.
Hugh Rodham was paid $400,000 to lobby for a pardon of Almon Glenn Braswell, who had been convicted of mail fraud and perjury, and for the release from prison of Carlos Vignali, a drug trafficker who was convicted and imprisoned for conspiring to sell 800 pounds of cocaine. Sure enough, in his last hours in office (when he issued a blizzard of pardons, many of them controversial), President Clinton agreed to the pardon for Braswell and the sentence commutation for Vignali.
Hugh Rodham reportedly returned the money after the scandal became public and was an enormous political liability for the Clintons.
Both Clintons professed to be ignorant of anything improper or untoward regarding the pardons. Once, when asked specifically if she had talked with a deputy White House counsel about pardons, Mrs. Clinton said: “People would hand me envelopes. I would just pass them on. You know, I would not have any reason to look into them.”
It wasn’t just the pardons that sullied the Clintons’ exit from the White House. They took furniture and rugs from the White House collection that had to be returned. And they received $86,000 in gifts during the president’s last year in office, including clothing (a pantsuit, a leather jacket), flatware, carpeting, and so on. In response to the outcry over that, they decided to repay the value of the gifts.
I'll cut her a small check right now in exchange for her concession speech! If her supporters can threaten the Dem party with money why can't we use it to help her leave?
blackwolf
· 1 year ago
Obama is making a huge mistake. He needs to clarify what his intentions are.
Bush_Bites
· 1 year ago
I like the idea, but let's be honest.
Just because she's not going to win the nomination doesn't mean she can't cause trouble--at the convention and throughout the fall.
That's one Crazy Hillbilly Family (one reason why Hillary seems to be the Queen of Appalachia), and they're capable of anything.
aquarius2
· 1 year ago
Why aren't the Clinton supporters starting donation rallies to help pay off her debt? They have stood by her through all the state races and now that she may be in trouble financially they potentially are going to abandon her? They should be ashamed, their candidate fought for them and now when she needs them where are they?
terjeanderson
· 1 year ago
A lot of people seem to forget that paying off campaign debts is subject to the same limitations as other campaign fundraising - donation limits, etc.
So the question of Obama using his campaign funds to pay off Clinton debt isn't just politically unpalatable, it would also be illegal -- Obama cannot legally make a multi-million dollar contribution to Clinton, any more than George Soros could write a single check to do it for party unity. Similarly, her donors who have already maxed out couldn't augment their contribution for debt retirement - so somehow she would have to find new or unmaxed donors to retire her debt. Terry McAuliffe would have to dig a lot deeper to find anyone he hasn't already soaked this season.
Obama can help fundraise to erase the debt - but it seems unlikely to me that he would be able to send appeals to small donors supporting him that would convince them to write checks to pay Mark Penn or to put it back directly into the hands of multimillionaires Hillary and Bill Clinton. (I know I wouldn't write a check for a penny for those purposes.)
Alternatively, there could be agreement for Obama to headline some fundraising events for Clinton, or for his people to approach some of their maxed out donors, etc. (It would have to be post election, not taking a single dime away from the November effort ).
Campaigns sometimes take many years to pay off their debts. I have no doubt that Clinton will be able to raise money from industry, lobbyists, lawyers, and others of the K Street ilk who will want to remain in her good graces as she remains in the Senate (or who want to strike business deals with Bill).
Of course this would all be complicated if she were (god forbid) to end up as the VP nominee. A whole lot of complicated bookkeeping about primary and general election funds, two campaigns' finances, etc would impact her - and the pressure on Obama to make sure she was debt free going into the campaign would mount.
As a bottom line, the small vendors and businesses being screwed over by the Clinton campaign need to be paid -- because even indirect bad publicity about those bills would hurt the Democrats (generically) in the fall.
But as far as I'm concerned, no one in the Democratic party should lift a finger to pay union buster Penn or to enrich Bill and Hillary's personal finances.
blackwolf
· 1 year ago
Here's the problem with the whole affair: Obama and his team should not even being considering an option...period. Hillary has clearly created a division in the party, and she's sleeping in the bed "she" made. I'm not for clearing up the debts of these rich fat cats. This is a crazy idea.
jwhit
· 1 year ago
James Carville and company insisted that they had the millions of dollars it would take to redo Florida and Michigan so I would suggest that they take that same money and pay off Hillary's debt.
Dave of the Jungle
· 1 year ago
It's ironic how much what Hillary is doing in this campaign is analogous to what George W Bush has done with the nation.
gustavmahler
· 1 year ago
Hillary can afford to pay her own bills, unlike most people in this country now. Have Bill make more speeches, write another book! I am glad Obama said he wasn't going to give her his money.
bushknew
· 1 year ago
Obama supporters ought to be more careful in their criticisms of Hillary. There is half of the Democratic party that doesn't support Obama for the nomination. Talking about unity in the party and the turning around and criticizing her and her supporters won't get you very far at least with me. Now I intend to support the nominee in November but I won't criticize Obama other than saying I believe he's the weaker candidate. I very much fear a McCain administration and I also fear a lot of working class, blue collar voters will move to him in droves if Obama is the nominee, thus losing PA, OH, FL, MI. There is nowhere else in the electoral landscape to make up those votes. Supporting your candidate is fine. Winning is much more important to me.
1BobbyBlue2
· 1 year ago
To quote Ellen Malcom in Saturday's WaPo:
"This brilliant woman believes that she can compete for the most powerful office in the world. She believes that she can do a better job than any of the men running to lead our country through these challenging times. And millions of Americans, women and men, believe that she is correct.
"Yet over and over again the media and her opponents have claimed that she is defeated -- it's over, she can't win, she's a loser. And over and over again -- in New Hampshire, on Super Tuesday, in Texas and Ohio, in Pennsylvania last month, and in Indiana this week -- female voters poured out of their homes to cast their ballots for her. They know that women can compete, and they want to make sure that women, especially this woman, can win."
Nigel Elliott
· 1 year ago
Cali buyer's remorse.....
While voters in the California Democratic Presidential Primary backed Clinton by a 10-point margin, a new SurveyUSA poll shows that if given the chance to vote again, Californians would choose Barack Obama by a 6-point margin, 49%-43%. http://cbs5.com/politics/poll.clinton.obama.2.7...
LanceThruster
· 1 year ago
Nigel Elliott 22 hours ago 1 point Please login to rate.
Cali buyer's remorse.....
While voters in the California Democratic Presidential Primary backed Clinton by a 10-point margin, a new SurveyUSA poll shows that if given the chance to vote again, Californians would choose Barack Obama by a 6-point margin, 49%-43%. http://cbs5.com/politics/poll.clinton.obama.2.7...
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Thanks for posting this. I am glad that other Californians have come around.
Bush_Bites
· 1 year ago
Obama/Webb.
Cethis
· 1 year ago
If wants a chance at getting money from Obama's supporters, she shouldn't still imply that only she can win because she's white. She should spend more time attacking McCain and then at some point imply that Obama passed the commander-in-chief test. And if she gets the money, she needs to make a speech saying something to the effect of, "Today I have 25 million reasons why I am ending my campaign and endorsing Sen. Barack Obama!"
texasbob
· 1 year ago
"She shouldn't be biting the hand that's going to have to feed her."
Yes, she should not be biting any hands, though she seems to be able to do little else. But where do you get the idea that anyone's "going to have to feed her"?? Who owes her anything? If she maliciously hangs in the race in the expectation that Obama will have to buy her off, that's extortion pure and simple. (Just like a Rodham?) She says she's the accomplished person who can really get things done, the real grown-up compared to inexperienced Obama, so let her act like a responsible grown-up. She can pay off her own debts...so let her. After all, she bragged a lot a while back about the vast amounts of money she could raise. Raise away, Hillary.
OlderAndWiser
· 1 year ago
Not one penny, Obama, not one penny. Why should his campaign pay any debts of the divider, Clinton?
jr
· 1 year ago
"EMILY's List is my favorite political group. Taylor Marsh and Larry Johnson are my favorite bloggers"-John McCain
Schmedlap
· 1 year ago
How much money is left in Bill's defense fund?
hawkseye
· 1 year ago
Creating a Progressive's "negative jar" would be fun. Everytime Hillary and company go negative, put so many $$$$ in a pot for Obama and send it to him at the end of each week and send a press release to the media about it. That might shut up the Clintons. I still say they will be broke very soon and outta this.
ggm1957
· 1 year ago
When I overspend, I have to pay it off all by my lonesome. What a concept - paying your own debts - but then again, I am not rich - so don't expect someone else to bail me out. Hillary made her own financial problems, not out of need, but out of greed. Nothing matters Hillary or Bill except geting into the White House again. That, we don't need. Hillary's smear campaign - because she doesn't have anything of her own to offer and smearing someone else takes the focus off from her - needs to go away. She has brought the negative feelings on herself.
aibi
· 1 year ago
RE: Hillary's debt. We all know she's in a deep financial hole for the nomination campaign, but doesn't she have a huge chunk of change set aside for the presidential campaign? Back when this whole thing began - when Hillary was the inevitable candidate (ha!) - there was story after story about how much money she had but always with the caveat that $XX million couldn't be spent on the nomination campaign because it was in reserve for the presidential campaign. When (if?) she finally admits defeat, can't she pay her debts with the money she already has?
All Comments
She will have plenty of time to make that money back when Obama is President.
The last time the Clintons had to make a big exit was at the end of Bill Clinton’s second term as president — and they made a complete and utter hash of that historic moment. Having survived the Monica Lewinsky ordeal, you might have thought the Clintons would be on their best behavior.
Instead, a huge scandal erupted when it became known that Mrs. Clinton’s brothers, Tony and Hugh Rodham, had lobbied the president on behalf of criminals who then received presidential pardons or a sentence commutation from Mr. Clinton.
Tony Rodham helped get a pardon for a Tennessee couple that had hired him as a consultant and paid or loaned him hundreds of thousands of dollars. Over the protests of the Justice Department, President Clinton pardoned the couple, Edgar Allen Gregory Jr. and his wife, Vonna Jo, who had been convicted of bank fraud in Alabama.
Hugh Rodham was paid $400,000 to lobby for a pardon of Almon Glenn Braswell, who had been convicted of mail fraud and perjury, and for the release from prison of Carlos Vignali, a drug trafficker who was convicted and imprisoned for conspiring to sell 800 pounds of cocaine. Sure enough, in his last hours in office (when he issued a blizzard of pardons, many of them controversial), President Clinton agreed to the pardon for Braswell and the sentence commutation for Vignali.
Hugh Rodham reportedly returned the money after the scandal became public and was an enormous political liability for the Clintons.
Both Clintons professed to be ignorant of anything improper or untoward regarding the pardons. Once, when asked specifically if she had talked with a deputy White House counsel about pardons, Mrs. Clinton said: “People would hand me envelopes. I would just pass them on. You know, I would not have any reason to look into them.”
It wasn’t just the pardons that sullied the Clintons’ exit from the White House. They took furniture and rugs from the White House collection that had to be returned. And they received $86,000 in gifts during the president’s last year in office, including clothing (a pantsuit, a leather jacket), flatware, carpeting, and so on. In response to the outcry over that, they decided to repay the value of the gifts.
So class is not a Clinton forte.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/opinion/10her...
Just because she's not going to win the nomination doesn't mean she can't cause trouble--at the convention and throughout the fall.
That's one Crazy Hillbilly Family (one reason why Hillary seems to be the Queen of Appalachia), and they're capable of anything.
So the question of Obama using his campaign funds to pay off Clinton debt isn't just politically unpalatable, it would also be illegal -- Obama cannot legally make a multi-million dollar contribution to Clinton, any more than George Soros could write a single check to do it for party unity. Similarly, her donors who have already maxed out couldn't augment their contribution for debt retirement - so somehow she would have to find new or unmaxed donors to retire her debt. Terry McAuliffe would have to dig a lot deeper to find anyone he hasn't already soaked this season.
Obama can help fundraise to erase the debt - but it seems unlikely to me that he would be able to send appeals to small donors supporting him that would convince them to write checks to pay Mark Penn or to put it back directly into the hands of multimillionaires Hillary and Bill Clinton. (I know I wouldn't write a check for a penny for those purposes.)
Alternatively, there could be agreement for Obama to headline some fundraising events for Clinton, or for his people to approach some of their maxed out donors, etc. (It would have to be post election, not taking a single dime away from the November effort ).
Campaigns sometimes take many years to pay off their debts. I have no doubt that Clinton will be able to raise money from industry, lobbyists, lawyers, and others of the K Street ilk who will want to remain in her good graces as she remains in the Senate (or who want to strike business deals with Bill).
Of course this would all be complicated if she were (god forbid) to end up as the VP nominee. A whole lot of complicated bookkeeping about primary and general election funds, two campaigns' finances, etc would impact her - and the pressure on Obama to make sure she was debt free going into the campaign would mount.
As a bottom line, the small vendors and businesses being screwed over by the Clinton campaign need to be paid -- because even indirect bad publicity about those bills would hurt the Democrats (generically) in the fall.
But as far as I'm concerned, no one in the Democratic party should lift a finger to pay union buster Penn or to enrich Bill and Hillary's personal finances.
Supporting your candidate is fine. Winning is much more important to me.
"This brilliant woman believes that she can compete for the most powerful office in the world. She believes that she can do a better job than any of the men running to lead our country through these challenging times. And millions of Americans, women and men, believe that she is correct.
"Yet over and over again the media and her opponents have claimed that she is defeated -- it's over, she can't win, she's a loser. And over and over again -- in New Hampshire, on Super Tuesday, in Texas and Ohio, in Pennsylvania last month, and in Indiana this week -- female voters poured out of their homes to cast their ballots for her. They know that women can compete, and they want to make sure that women, especially this woman, can win."
While voters in the California Democratic Presidential Primary backed Clinton by a 10-point margin, a new SurveyUSA poll shows that if given the chance to vote again, Californians would choose Barack Obama by a 6-point margin, 49%-43%.
http://cbs5.com/politics/poll.clinton.obama.2.7...
Please login to rate.
Cali buyer's remorse.....
While voters in the California Democratic Presidential Primary backed Clinton by a 10-point margin, a new SurveyUSA poll shows that if given the chance to vote again, Californians would choose Barack Obama by a 6-point margin, 49%-43%.
http://cbs5.com/politics/poll.clinton.obama.2.7...
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Thanks for posting this. I am glad that other Californians have come around.
Yes, she should not be biting any hands, though she seems to be able to do little else. But where do you get the idea that anyone's "going to have to feed her"?? Who owes her anything? If she maliciously hangs in the race in the expectation that Obama will have to buy her off, that's extortion pure and simple. (Just like a Rodham?) She says she's the accomplished person who can really get things done, the real grown-up compared to inexperienced Obama, so let her act like a responsible grown-up. She can pay off her own debts...so let her. After all, she bragged a lot a while back about the vast amounts of money she could raise. Raise away, Hillary.
I still say they will be broke very soon and outta this.