Obama, Hillary and campaign debt
There's been a lot of rumor and innuendo floating around the internets late this week about what it will take to get Hillary (and, let's face it, Bill) to step down gracefully, and much of the chatter has focused on Obama "repaying" Hillary's campaign debt -- particularly the personal loans she gave the campaign, now totaling about $11m. The first whiff I caught of this nonsense was in a Salon article on Wednesday titled What Does Hillary Want?; the meme has since been spotted from the NY Times to Keith Olbermann. Like most Obama supporters, I was taken aback at this suggestion: his campaign has been funded by small donors like myself, to whom $50 or $100 is a big deal -- I for one don't want my money lining Hillary's (already well-lined) pockets! (If I did, I'd have donated to her in the first place, doh.)
Here's the deal: Campaign finance laws severely limit the amount of money one campaign can give to another ($2,000) and the amount that the national committee can give ($5,000). Furthermore, regardless of the source of the money, a candidate can only repay themselves $250,000.
So what's all this hubbub about, then? Whether this narrative is a deliberate ploy to make Obama's supporters suspicious and less quick to donate in the future, or it's a case of the media over-siimplifying at the expense of the truth, I don't know. But it's not true, at least not in the way it's being presented by much of the media. Obama won't be writing the Clintons, or their campaign, a check for $20 million. What he can do, though, is help their fundraising efforts once she suspends her campaign. I don't know how effective that would be, or how much time or energy he'd want to put into raising money for someone else while still running a campaign himself. But when it comes to helping her with her debts, that's the extent of his power. So don't fret -- your money is safe with Obama. /grin/
For detailed information, check out these articles from Slate:
Can a Campaign Go Bankrupt?
Trailhead : Debt Relief