I tried to find the answer on the internet, but there was way too much info about campaign financing; I figure an SDMB poster has the answer: It’s in the news - Hillary is in debt because of the costs associated with her campaign. I know she put some of her own money toward the financing at some point. But now she’s in debt and still seeking donations. Why can’t she pay off the debt out of her personal funds? Or is there a limit to how much a candidate can finance his/her campaign with their own money? And if so, what is the rationale?
I think she can use her own money, but at this point what would be the return on investment for her? Why waste money if she isn’t going to win the Presidency? It’s my understanding she is millions in debt with her own money (maybe 10 million?), and I’m sure she could write it off as a loss. But even insanely rich people don’t like to lose 10 million dollars if they can have the average American donate that money, or take it from Obama’s supporters since he agreed to help her out. So that is what I believe is happening here - avoiding writing it off because in the end it’s better if they can just raise that money from the general population.
If you could pay off a debt with other peoples’ money rather than your own, wouldn’t you? And, why should people have to impoverish themselves to run for public office?
These campaign organizations to raise campaign money are set up for good reasons – to separate the candidate from the revenue and the debts. If the money goes directly to the candidate, it has the appearance of a bribe, and mingling the candidates private money makes for an accounting nightmare. Should campaign donations be used to pay the candidate’smortgage? Hard to prove it’s not if the personal and campaign money is pooled together.
She could and pretty much did, to the tune of $10 million that she loaned her campaign. But she not only spent that, but has additional debt above and beyond that. Unfortunately for those who want him to do so, Obama’s campaign cannot just give her the money, nor can the party; it’s against the rules.
So she’s stuck trying to raise money for a defunct campaign, just to bail out the additional debts. She’ll probably never recover her “loan” amount at all and I’d bet that she’s going to leave a substantial debt unpaid, which will be a problem for her future campaigns, even for Senate.
This is non-political:
Dontcha just love the American Presidential system that forces a potential winner to declare 2 years ahead of the election?
Don’t just look at Hillary. Romney spent about $40 million and you won’t even find his name in the paper. Remember Phil Graham? He had the war chest but couldn’t buy a vote. What’s Rudy doing these days? Ross Perot spent a fortune and now has no influence in American politics. Howard Dean flamed and blew out.
The OP gets to the core of what is wrong with the system. 2+ years of campaigning just wastes money. Politics being what it is, yes maybe she can afford to absorb the debt but why? Politicians are the masters of letting someone else pick up the check.
Surely by keeping it open, she’ll be able to pay it off with contributions for her race for re-election to the Senate?
This is not about anybody ‘having’ to do anything. Hillary voluntarily chose to run for office, and also voluntarily chose to carry on campaigning long after the rest of the party and the rest of the world knew she was forked. Her choice, her pig-headed refusal to see the light, her debts, her problem.
As for ‘impoverish’, do you even know what this word means? The Clintons are nowhere near poverty.
As I understand it, there are fairly tight regulations regarding campaign debt. If the creditor forgives the debt (or if the candidate just stiffs them), it is considered an illegal campaign contribution. If the campaign has absolutely no possibility of raising the funds to pay off the debts, there is an elaborate process to go through to “declare bankruptcy” without violating campaign finance laws.
And that’s the ticket here. She chose to borrow money on the premise that she still had a chance to win the nomination. Of course, the back side of this is that if she had won, she would have had a substantial debt from the primary campaign that would have carried over into the general campaign, reducing the amount of money that she would have had available to spend on the actual Presidential Campaign portion of the Dog & Pony Show.
Which is why most providers of goods and services to a campaign (like the charter jets, meeting hall rentals, and perhaps most importantly, advertising) require cash up front. Campaigns leave precious few tangible assets that could be sold off during a bankruptcy, and businesses don’t want to get trapped into what may or may not turn out to be a campaign contribution.
No, accorssing to the law it’s not really her problem. It’s the campaign organization’s problem. That’s why Hillary lent it money, and didn’t give it money – she expects the organization to pay her back with the money raised.
As far as impoverished, yes I know the Clinton’s are not hurting – probably. I saw a story claiming that Bill has earned nearly $100 million since he left office. If, I were him, I wouldn’t hand her my money to pay off this debt. And I would guess they live a pretty lavish lifestyle with money flowing out almost as fast as it comes in. I have no idea whether they have $20 million in cash sitting in a bank account, but I doubt it.
But SHE did not borrow money, the campaign did. SHE loaned out money – to the campaign. She is now a creditor of the campaign organization, and some chunk of whatever money it raises will flow back into her pocket as repayment of the debt to her.
No, those are separate campaign committees, each with their own separate bank accounts.
If Hillary gets picked as the Democratic Vice-President candidate, that will be another separate campaign committee, and can’t pay money back to the Hillary for President campaign.
Of course, there are lots of lobbyists who want to be on her good side, and are willing to make contributions to her inactive Presidential committee to do so. After all, she is still the senior Senator from New York, and likely to be there for quite a while, and to be a power in the Senate. If she’s tapped for VP, that’s even more reason. And Obama supporters may want to help retire this debt, so that she works hard to elect him in the Fall.
The point is that you can spend tens of millions of dollars, but there’s absolutely no correlation between spending and votes. Guliani spent $67 million and didn’t get a single delegate.
The system doesn’t force these folks to declare two years early and burn money. It’s their narcissism that does that.