February 6, 2008, 3:25 pm
By Kate Phillips
Updated LOS ANGELES — Our colleague Patrick Healy tells us that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, facing big primaries against her rival Senator Barack Obama in places like Ohio and Texas, is weighing whether to lend her campaign money.
And in a quick update, her campaign has just confirmed that she’d already lent her coffers $5 million of her own money in late January. A just-issued statement from her camp:
The loan illustrates Senator 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.
More Updates: At her news conference this afternoon, Senator Clinton acknowledged the loan, saying: “I loaned the campaign $5 million from my money. That’s where I got the money. I did it because I believe very strongly in this campaign, and we had a great month fund-raising in January, broke all our records, but my opponent was able to raise more money and we intended to be competitive – and we were – and I think the results last night proved the wisdom of my investment.”
Her advisers says she’s considering another loan because money is tight now — the mega-primaries yesterday were quite the financial drain. And although she won many states yesterday, including some very big states like New York and California, the victories weren’t resoundingly decisive enough — especially when you look at the extremely tight delegate matchup right now — to inspire a lot of new giving, Pat says.
Plus, many of her donors had already maxed out for the primary season and more of her money than that raised by the Obama campaign was pledged to the general cycle and can’t be used right now. Mr. Obama’s campaign boasted a haul in January of $32 million with a lot of new, smaller donors.
moreAnd he implied that he would not use his own funds to support his wife's candidacy.
“
For example, they say you couldn’t stop me from spending all the money I’ve saved over the last five years on Hillary’s campaign if I wanted to, even though it would clearly violate the spirit of campaign finance reform,” he said.
Soon after that expansive answer, he was back on message. Hillary Clinton, he said, was “a first-class change agent, and let me tell you why.”
moreHow does Bill get around on one foot when other one is always in his mouth?
Obama is in
good financial shape:
The Kerry email/donor list seems to have given the Obama campaign a big boost from smaller donors. Unless Hillary can figure out a way to tap into these donors or a new pool of financial donors, she may be in trouble.
More on the
Kerry/Kennedy effect.
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