Is there any historical precedent for a party nominee to retire a rival's campaign debt?
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 - 7:37am
I just don't get why Clinton is trying to set this expectation that Obama should pay. Wouldn't that money be better spent on the campaign? If I gave money to Obama and it was used to retire debt Clinton incurred in her ineptly, some say fraudulently, financed campaign, I'd be pretty pissed off.
So anyway, is there a precedent for that sort of thing?
"All that time you waste dating and having sex could be better spent scouring the web for new game developer press releases." - Quintin_Stone
There is none I believe but this is the DNC we are talking about... so who knows maybe a secret hand shake and your golden? Plus this is also Hillary and where she goes HILLarity ensues!
Xfire: Pharacon
Tempest says: "A team hat doe snot communicate and talk to each other about what the next move will be is going to lose."
Mex is my hero = "f*ck it, I'll do it. WE'LL DO IT LIVE."
Clinton is set on this expectation that Obama will pay for her losses because she believed she was entitled to the presidency and if Obama's going to take it from her the least he could do is pay for it.
NOTE: This is not a doodle bug.
Spore
...plus interest!
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And an apology for cutting in line ahead of her.
Sorry, Phara, the RNC candidates do this too, and it's been happening for a while. McCain was looking at retiring Giuliani's debt, for example. Nothing partisan to see here.
"Sometimes I go around saying, 'Kommisar Paulson has seized the commanding heights of the economy!'" - Paul Krugman, asked if recent changes to banking are socialistic.
He (or the DNC) pays off her debt in return for her support to get Obama elected.
bnpederson wrote:
She's already offering her support (kinda) and her supporters aren't buying it.
NOTE: This is not a doodle bug.
Spore
We shall grapple with the ineffable, and see if we may not eff it after all.
From what I remember, by law she can't accept money from the Obama campaign. The most he can do is hold fundraisers for her where he encourages his supporters to give money to her. Since his supporters mostly consider her only slightly more palatable than the anti-christ (and many of them would put her below the dark one), she's not been getting a whole lot of money out of them. The DNC won't have the money to pay her bills. They've got a mountain of congressional races to help fund.
What's disgusting about her demands is that she can easily afford to self-fund her own campaign.
Yeah, but what if she couldn't? What if she wasn't a millionaire? I mean, I'm not going to suggest that anyone who isn't a millionaire deserves a shot at the presidency, but hypothetically speaking.
NOTE: This is not a doodle bug.
Spore
Then I wouldn't say her demands are disgusting but rather were more understandable. It's disgusting only because she's got money in the bank to cover these costs. Come to think of it, she also continued to spend even when she knew she couldn't win. So she's kind of a double scumbag there.
Maybe that person would have had to be a little more fiscally prudent with their campaign spending.
A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him, than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word "darkness" on the wall of his cell.
-CS Lewis
Yeah, maybe that person wouldn't have drug their campaign out for months after it was clearly obviously they could not possibly win the delegate count, while in the meantime spending millions of more dollars and then later asking their opponent, the person they villianized, to cover the cost of spreading said villianization! Yes sir, may I please pay for a commercial that disparages my character? Why, thank you for letting me!
Like McCain? Remember this?
"Sometimes I go around saying, 'Kommisar Paulson has seized the commanding heights of the economy!'" - Paul Krugman, asked if recent changes to banking are socialistic.
God I hope Obama or the DNC doesn't pay off their debt. Its a horrible precedent to set, and it will just give anyone an excuse in the future to run up more campaign debts even when they should have thrown in the towel after Super Tuesday.
Playing WoW as: Vilius (70 NE Druid)
“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.” John K Galbraith
There are a lot of Clinton supporters who think he owes it to her. More than that, they think it's the only honorable thing for him to do, and that if he doesn't pay her debts then he's untrustworthy. He's got to balance the danger of that precedent with the value of those votes.
NOTE: This is not a doodle bug.
Spore
He can't pay off her debts with his own money. It's illegal. The only thing he can do is ask his contributors to contribute to her campaign. Tough sell.
Maybe that's what Clinton wants. She can get her debts repaid and destroy Obama's chances in one fell swoop.
NOTE: This is not a doodle bug.
Spore
I think that sums it up.
Unless you're running out of mana overhealing is the most worthless stat in the game. Underhealing is effectively known as "wiping".
so sayeth the Bear...
Guys, unless we are willing to dig into how often and under what circumstances this has occurred in the past (and it seems to have), we don't have any real evidence as to why, or what the candidates were thinking at the time. It's just speculation based on opinions.
It seems pretty spurious to look at this and conclude Hillary wanted to be paid off for not being President, or (for example) that John McCain was trying to buy off one of the other candidates when he considered paying off Giuliani's debt. Neither position is supportable with just the evidence we have; people are just lining up on the same old sides to peek through their favorite lenses.
"Sometimes I go around saying, 'Kommisar Paulson has seized the commanding heights of the economy!'" - Paul Krugman, asked if recent changes to banking are socialistic.
We know that 1) Hillary wants the debt retired by someone else even though she has money to pay for it herself (something not every politician can do); 2) press reports citing insiders indicated that she negotiated with Obama on this issue; 3) she can still screw with Obama's campaign if she wants; 4) Obama wouldn't do this out of the kindness of his heart, so obviously HE thinks there is a implied threat there.
It doesn't seem like an unreasonable leap to link her support for Obama to his help on this issue. It's speculation, but hardly spurious.
double post for Hillary.
You are correct. However,
is not supported by your argument. That's what I was addressing. Along with Phara's suggestion that this was DNC related rather than something that happens in both parties.
"Sometimes I go around saying, 'Kommisar Paulson has seized the commanding heights of the economy!'" - Paul Krugman, asked if recent changes to banking are socialistic.
That quote has a more specific psychological speculation than is covered by the evidence I offered, but it seems like it was meant to be somewhat hyperbolic. If you had quoted that line I wouldn't have responded.
It's true that we're never going to know whether Clinton felt entitled to the nomination. That's based only on our impression of her. I think it's more likely than not, mostly because I can't think of a non-narcissistic reason why someone with over $100 million and the prospects of earning millions more would demand someone reimburse her for campaign expenses when she blew through the money at a time when she had almost no chance of winning.
I did not know it happen in the past and have been doing some research and from what I found it seems to be a way for the loser to endorse the person that won. But normal it looks like the committees themselves will do it not the person who won. Which makes it weird that Hillary is looking for a hand out directly from Obama?
I also guess it is normal for the winner to suggest that people donate to help kill the debt as well. Which is what McCain did with "America's Mayor."
Xfire: Pharacon
Tempest says: "A team hat doe snot communicate and talk to each other about what the next move will be is going to lose."
Mex is my hero = "f*ck it, I'll do it. WE'LL DO IT LIVE."
And yet the simple explanation is that she's asking the guy who has the money. Obama's fundraising has been incredible. So I think the simple "follow the money" is all that is needed; the rest is just speculation at this point.
If I'm wrong, I'm happy to admit it. but it's kind of a small thing to build a big point off.
I agree, donations are the way to go and that's how it's usually done. The whole system is out of whack. We need electoral reform in the *worst* way, right after a balanced budget, a tax overhaul, first-pass Social Security and health care overhauls...
Wait. If we got the electoral reform, we could probably get the other four much more easily.
"Sometimes I go around saying, 'Kommisar Paulson has seized the commanding heights of the economy!'" - Paul Krugman, asked if recent changes to banking are socialistic.
Except her own personal fortune is vast, and Obama's contributors were so angry at her after the way she conducted herself that it's bizarre to ask them to fund her campaign. This wasn't Bill Richardson asking for cash. A guy with no way to self-finance, who dropped out after it was clear he couldn't win, and ran a clean campaign. This is the $100 million dollar power couple who winked at racists and pulled the elitist line that might sink Obama saying: "We don't want to pay our own bills even though we can easily do it. We want your supporters to pay the bills."
Tacky and dishonorable.
It's hard to generate sympathy after you drop a line like, "I'm staying in the race because someone might shoot my opponent."
And that stops rich people from wanting more? Last I checked, she didn't get rich by spending her millions...
"Sometimes I go around saying, 'Kommisar Paulson has seized the commanding heights of the economy!'" - Paul Krugman, asked if recent changes to banking are socialistic.
I don't get this. Just because I can save money by getting something for free, doesn't mean it's reasonable to ask for it for free. Or rational. There's a difference between asking for charity and pure greed. If a poor person asks me to buy him a meal it's different than if a rich man asks me to pay for his dinner, right?