Hillary's debt

[Anonymous]

I find it absurd to expect Obama to help pay off Hillary's campaign debt--a debt she amassed by campaigning aggressively against him and dragging this fight on well beyond when it should have ended. Am I missing something? I feel like everyone continues to kowtow to her when it seems to me that she pursued her campaign to satisfy personal ambitions despite the harm she was doing to the party.

[Anonymous]

From what I understand (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong), it is customary for the "winner" to pay the debts of the "loser."

He should pay and move on. It is making him look petty and vindictive to drag the process on and on...

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:From what I understand (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong), it is customary for the "winner" to pay the debts of the "loser."

He should pay and move on. It is making him look petty and vindictive to drag the process on and on...

You are mistaken. Obama has to adhere to the same contribution limits that everyone else does. He cannot legally pay off her debt. What Obama can do, and in fact is doing, is ask his supporters to contribute to Hillary. The problem is that people who were recently being called latte-drinking, Prius drivers by Hillary's supporters are not feeling particularly generous. Apparently, Obama has told his top fundraisers to put more of an effort into raising money for Hillary.

[Anonymous]

I don't think its fair to give Hilliary any money. No one told her to lend her campaign the money to continue. She lost the ticket and her money also she should consider it a loss and move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think its fair to give Hilliary any money. No one told her to lend her campaign the money to continue. She lost the ticket and her money also she should consider it a loss and move on.

You are incorrect if you think the money Hillary loaned her campaign will be repaid. She has made it clear that donations will not go toward repaying that money. It is also, as a PP noted, customary for the primary winner to help retire campaign debt. As Jeff said, Obama cannot repay it directly. He is also not asking his grassroots internet supporters to help, and he has said he does not intend to do that. Instead, he has asked his big donors and bundlers for their help. Despite Jeff's dig, I understand that Obama's big donors are quite willing to help. My latte-drinking, two-Prius, two-Ph.D. family, which supported Hillary, will be at their joint appearance tonight.

[Anonymous]

If it's customary for the primary winner to help retire campaign debt, why haven't there been news stories about McCain doing this - or other candidates from previous years? Is it that Hillary has acquired such an enormous debt that it is news-worthy? Or is it that Obama's campaign is making a stink of it? Is it the vast-right-wing conspiracy out to get the Clintons again?

[Anonymous]

There are two reasons for Obama to encourage his larger donors to help with Hillary's debt. First, it will help make the Hillary supporters and her donors like him and help him to gain their support more quickly and more strongly because it shows his respect for her, etc. Moreover, there is an element of trading off here to help with the debt limits. There are lots of big donors who have already maxed on Obama and can't give him more directly. But they can give to Hillary. On the other hand there are big donors who have already maxed to Hillary and can't give her more, but can give to Obama. So, if Obama gets his people to give to Hillary and she gets her people to give to Obama, it's a win-win.

I by the way had already contributed to Obama early on, then donated the max to Hillary and am now slated to attend a fundraiser for the max to Obama, I wish the Obama supporters would be a bit more gracious about having won in a very close race. I care very much about a Democrat winning the White House, fully support Obama, have always been a Democrat, etc. and even I find some of the Obama supporters annoyingly self righteous and tiresome.