Would you loan money to Hillary Clinton?

I sure wouldn't. She's spending herself into massive amounts of debt -- $31 million as of April 30, presumably even more by now -- all in the pursuit of an utterly lost cause. What's the point, Hillary?

Of course, $11 million of that debt is money she owes herself, and another $5 million is money she owes Mark Penn. Some of the rest is owed to other high-dollar consultants. I'm not exactly weeping for those folks. They knew what they were getting into.

But some of this debt is owed to miscellaneous small-time vendors in Iowa, New Hampshire, and other states she's campaigned in. How can she justify that? She's throwing money down the toilet in pursuit of a nomination she can't win, accruing more and more debt along the way, while a bunch of people who've helped her -- caterers, cleaners, landlords, event planners -- are paying the price, in the form of unpaid bills. She claims to be a "fighter" for the little people, and yet the little people are among those who she's stiffing. Are these folks ever going to get their money back? If they don't, Hillary Clinton will have some serious explaining to do.

P.S. Slate offers a useful primer on the topic, under the headline, "Can a Campaign Go Bankrupt?" (Short answer: yes.)

Meanwhile, about the possibility of Obama helping Hillary retire her debts: I was going to say that it would be an outrage for Obama to use the hard-earned, small-dollar donations of his individual contributors to pay off the debts of a rival campaign that was financially mismanaged to the point of near-criminal incompetence -- and that didn't know when to quit. However, according to Josh Marshall, that's not even a legal possibility, and all the MSM talk about it is legally ignorant babbling.

"Obama is not allowed to take millions of dollars from his own campaign and give them to Clinton's campaign," Marshall writes. "The most his campaign could legally give would be $2,000. Any deal to help Clinton with her debt would have to be in the form of Obama helping to raise additional money on Clinton's behalf." More here.

Comments

[copndor]

China would.

[Angrier and Angrier]

This is a Captain Ahab-like obsession with Hillary. This is really her best and only chance to be President and she is destroying everyone, including herself, with her pursuit of it.

I'm no psychologist, but this obsession smacks of some sort of deep psychological disorder, maybe rooted to her childhood efforts to win approval from her demanding and unreasonable father. I think a rudimentary, compulsive element of her personality has taken control to the point where it is almost involuntary for her at this point.

Her entire identity has been built around accomplishing this goal. If she doesn't accomplish it, who is she? What's next? Why bother?

[David K.]

Hillary apparently took her financial lessons from Dubya and the Iraq war, keep throwing money and resources at a losing cause and it'll turn around, right?!?!

[Joe Mama]

Iraq is a lost cause? You're so 2006, David.

[yea]

2006 or 2008 this country still isn't seeing the benefits of us being in iraq.

its my opinion that if you're going to do an oil grab, we should at least be paying decent prices for gas. if you're going to aggresively go after terrorists, you should probably choose a country that actually had a substantial amount of terrorists in it before you invaded.

[Joe Mama]

2006 or 2008 this country still isn't seeing the benefits of us being in iraq.

Perhaps you're not looking hard enough.

[Angrier and Angrier]

"The soldiers were also deployed near the political headquarters of Mr. Sadr. There were no visible signs of the Mahdi Army, the militia controlled by Mr. Sadr, although many walls bore posters of him that seemed to have been put up in the last few days."

Until the Mahdi Army is destroyed, taking Sadr City means nothing. It is simply shifting ground.

And quoting some blog written by a guy who works for the neo-con mecca The Hudson Institute doesn't speak volumes about credibility.

[Joe Mama]

Nice cherry-pick. And your source bias and lack of any substantive response regarding a blog written by someone who knows far more than you likewise doesn't speak volumes about credibility.

[Angrier and Angrier]

I'm not cherry picking. It's a fact. The reason the Iraqi troops have "gained control" of Sadr City is because the Mahdi Army left. Napoleon "gained control" of Moscow, too. Then the Russian winter/army kicked his ass.

As for "source bias," the neo-con groups have been totally discredited. It's not my bias. It is a reality bias.

[Joe Mama]

It's also a fact that the Iraqi troops took Sadr City without U.S. support, making it a back-to-back success following the successful offensive in Basra, which is likewise pacified and mostly under gov't control. I'm not holding my breath for the Russian winter to offset these gains.

Your "reality bias" is still sorely lacking in any substance.

A&A - "have been totally discredited" ...

You know, like, fer sure, dude !

[Nameless One]

Nice cherry-pick.

Pot, Kettle... Kettle, Pot

[Joe Mama]

As if.

[Angrier and Angrier]

That might be funny, anon, if I was using it like Spicoli, which I wasn't.

What's sad is Joe Mama didn't know the difference, either.

[Joe Mama]

The difference between what, you Spicoli? Guilty.

[Sandy Underpants]

6 years and a trillion dollars later, you can't have success in Iraq, you can just make the best of a terrible situation. It's telling that the majority of the Iraqi Parliament don't even live in Iraq, they live in England.

you can also make the worst of a bad situation.