# Hillary to raise 2.5 billion dollars. **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [April 18, 2015, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962 "2015-04-18T03:24:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DeptfordX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DeptfordX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeptfordX)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2015, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962/21 "2015-04-18T20:27:32Z")
Damn people, no offence meant, but your political system is _messed up_. 18 month elections, billions of dollars spent, it beggars belief. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2015, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962/22 "2015-04-18T21:19:14Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > **Champion** and others: Whom do you see as possible GOP candidates that, unlike Hillary, have all the qualities we’d admire in a President? Can’t say I see any. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2015, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962/23 "2015-04-18T22:03:09Z")
> [@DeptfordX](#): > > Damn people, no offence meant, but your political system is _messed up_. 18 month elections, billions of dollars spent, it beggars belief. Yes. And all to end up with Hillary, whom only a masochist or zealot could love, as almost surely the only sensible option. But 18 months? It’s still _21 months_ to Inauguration and, for several months already Hillary has been castigated for making us wait so long. Of course the 21 months does include 2 months to litigate vote recounts. I hope that will be enough. Back in 2000 when the vote was close in a large state, I think there was widespread hope that Hari Selden himself would appear in a hologram and guide us through such a unique Crisis. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2015, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962/24 "2015-04-18T22:11:52Z")
I can tell you from current experience in the UK is that six weeks campaigning feels like too long and zero tv advertising is still too much advertising. I can also tell you the more money you take out of the campaign, the more politicians concentrate on issues. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2015, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962/25 "2015-04-18T22:15:36Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Somehow I doubt that everyday Americans are going to be the main group represented at her fundraisers. Nor at anyone else’s. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2015, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962/26 "2015-04-18T23:35:53Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > And, oh, just by the bye, **ITR.** …what is the source for the “$2.5 billion” number? Is it the reporter herself? Has she some special expertise we are obliged to respect? Are you suggesting that the New York Times made the number up? I’ll acknowledge that the Times has a long and illustrious history of making things up\*, but I haven’t seen anyone challenging the $2.5 billion figure. \*To offer a few examples: [ul] [li]In February 2008, they put up a cover article implying that John McCain had slept with a staffer and used his influence to benefit her. One year and one lawsuit later, they admitted it wasn’t true.[/li][li]In July 2011, after Anders Breivik murdered 92 people in Norway, the headline was “As Horrors Emerge, Norway Charges Christian Extremist”. Later they admitted that Breivik was not a Christian.[/li][li]And just a few days ago, the Times published [url="[http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/04/12/nyt-editorial-board-forced-to-correct-big-lie-about-nra-convention-and-we-have-proof-of-how-false-the-claim-really-was/](http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/04/12/nyt-editorial-board-forced-to-correct-big-lie-about-nra-convention-and-we-have-proof-of-how-false-the-claim-really-was/)"a blatant lie about the NRA convention in Nashville.[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2015, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962/27 "2015-04-18T23:44:43Z")
The “Brevik was a Christian Extremist” thing wasn’t made up by the New York Times. The article said that the Norwegian police identified Brevik as a Christian extremist and his website as a fundamentalist Christian website, and in their press conference, the Norwegian police did just that. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2015, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962/28 "2015-04-19T00:35:41Z")
The last one isn’t a lie, either, let alone a blatant one. It was a minor correction to a story. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2015, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962/29 "2015-04-19T01:06:58Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > During Bill’s presidency, they sent their daughter to the illustrious Sidwell Friends School, a private school with an enormous price tag where you don’t find too many everyday Americans. I don’t particularly want to get involved in this thread - as I think it’s one more bit of whimsy, really - but I want to take exception to this particular bit of uninformed drollery. Sidwell Friends is a private Quaker school, yes. Just like many many others. My middle class and single mother almost put me there. I was accepted but ended up going first to Sandy Spring Friends School - another Quaker school just outside of Washington DC - and later a different private school. Was it costly? This would have been about 8 years or so before Chelsea went there but it was less than $10K per year. That’s expensive, sure. But it was possible. It’s not like sending a kid to one of those prestigious prep or finishing schools in Connecticut. For the record - and as a brag - my fourteen year old got an acceptance letter to one of those last and they wanted $60,000 per year and were glad to arrange a loan for me. I elected to reply in the negative. Anyway, please carry on. But disregard that bit of hate for Sidwell Friends. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2015, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962/30 "2015-04-19T02:13:51Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > Was it costly? This would have been about 8 years or so before Chelsea went there but it was less than $10K per year. That’s expensive, sure. But it was possible. Sidwell Friends’ tuition today is $36K. Median household income in the US, today, is $52K (and I think that’s before taxes). ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2015, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962/31 "2015-04-19T02:37:29Z")
They give out a lot of financial aid, though. And the question isn’t so much what it is now, but what it was when Chelsea was going there. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2015, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962/32 "2015-04-19T02:53:42Z")
At least we know how much it costs to buy a Presidency. Think twice about throwing her a couple of bones, she might accidentally slip on them on the way to dive into her money pit filled with special interest donations. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2015, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962/33 "2015-04-19T02:59:29Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Are you suggesting that the New York Times made the number up? I’ll acknowledge that the Times has a long and illustrious history of making things up\*, but I haven’t seen anyone challenging the $2.5 billion figure… Nice bit of rhetorical judo, there. You have only the New York Times for your source, apparently. Nothing wrong with that, perzackly, long as you’re upfront about it and don’t try to load too much weight on top of it. Might have been a good time to throttle down your distaste for the _Times_, though. I mean, when you jump right into telling us all the reasons we should _not_ trust the source right after _invoking_ that source…a bit clumsy, don’t you think? “The\* New York Times\* says the gostak distims the doshes, and the \* New York Times\* is a lying sack of shit, therefore the gostak distims the doshes!” I’m sure you see the problem there. Awkward. Yes, “awkward” is the word. The polite one, at any rate. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2015, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962/34 "2015-04-19T03:13:34Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > At least we know how much it costs to buy a Presidency. Think twice about throwing her a couple of bones, she might accidentally slip on them on the way to dive into her money pit filled with special interest donations. Lot of us would like to fix that, Dave. Would like to strike the problem at the root, a _radical_ solution, in the truest sense. The foundation of that commitment is a belief in democratic equality, a level “playing field”. You disdain “special interest” money? No prob, Bob, lot of us here on the left have been pulling on that end of the rope for a long damn time. Could use your help if you’ve nothing better to do, and don’t mind the company. Think restricting money is not the answer? Have you a better one? We are all ears, except when we are talking. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2015, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962/35 "2015-04-19T03:17:35Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Sidwell Friends’ tuition today is $36K. Median household income in the US, today, is $52K (and I think that’s before taxes). And my kid’s daycare is $26,400 for full time. That’s for a not-that-great daycare in a strip mall off the highway. Kids are expensive. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2015, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962/36 "2015-04-19T03:33:29Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Lot of us would like to fix that, Dave. Would like to strike the problem at the root, a _radical_ solution, in the truest sense. The foundation of that commitment is a belief in democratic equality, a level “playing field”. You disdain “special interest” money? No prob, Bob, lot of us here on the left have been pulling on that end of the rope for a long damn time. Could use your help if you’ve nothing better to do, and don’t mind the company. > > Think restricting money is not the answer? Have you a better one? We are all ears, except when we are talking. [I’ve given this a little thought.](http://holding-forth.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-best-free-speech-money-can-buy.html) Unfortunately, I don’t have any answers. Perhaps there aren’t any. I’ll still register my disdain about it, though. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2015, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962/37 "2015-04-19T10:52:53Z")
Back in the late 1970s, everybody who wasn’t a Yankee fan absolutely \*hated \*George Steinbrenner, because he way buying up all the top-level free agents and putting them in Yankee uniforms. Reggie, Catfish, those guys. Seemed to work, too: they won back-to-back world championships in 1977 and 1978. What links it to this thread is that Steinbrenner was, at the time, totally opposed to free agency. (This was back when it was still new, after all.) He made it clear that while he didn’t _like_ the new rules, as long as they were the rules, he was going to play by them and win by them. I don’t see that Hillary’s in a vastly different situation from Steinbrenner nearly 40 years ago. She’d like to undo _Citizens United_, but it’s the rules for the 2016 election. And no Democratic causes will be furthered if she takes a principled stand and refuses to raise the sort of money needed to play this game in this environment. Certainly a principled loss won’t put her or anyone else in an improved position to help undo _Citizens United_. So I expect her to do her damnedest to raise a metric shitload of money and win this election. Scalia and Kennedy both turn 80 in 2016, so if Hillary serves two terms, the odds that she will choose the replacement to one or both of them are excellent. So she could easily create a Supreme Court majority that would at least limit if not overturn _Citizens United_. If she become President, maybe she will, maybe she won’t, create that sort of majority. I think the odds are pretty good, though not certain. What we know for damned sure is that the GOP nominee will do no such thing. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2015, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962/38 "2015-04-19T18:12:13Z")
The best hope you have of bring sanity to this is if two old guys die? ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2015, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962/39 "2015-04-19T18:35:22Z")
Even then it’s no guarantee. But it appears to be the best path open to us outside of outright rebellion and summary execution of elected officials. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2015, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962/40 "2015-04-19T19:32:21Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Mrs. Clinton said, “Everyday American need a champion, and I want to be that champion.” Somehow I doubt that everyday Americans are going to be the main group represented at her fundraisers. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Nor at anyone else’s. I think I get the OP’s drift here. It is hypocrisy on Hillary’s part, but not Republicans, because they would never aspire to be a champion for everyday Americans. Or something. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-to-raise-2-5-billion-dollars/717962.md?page=3)