Clinton Faces a Cash Crunch

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Time Magazine

Along with a change of her political fortunes as the result of her devastating loss in Iowa and dropping poll numbers in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton's once-flush presidential campaign now faces a problem that few would have expected at this point: a sudden urgency to raise a lot of money fast.

With momentum against her and a battle plan that appears to be staking everything on the big and expensive states like New York and California that hold their primaries on February 5, Clinton's campaign is putting new pressure on its fundraisers to come up with the cash she will need to carry her through. "Clearly, by every measure, I hear they are in a real financial crunch," says one prominent fundraiser. "Here's the dilemma: You have a situation where there clearly is a full court press to raise more money, but considering the state of decline of the campaign, there's a real question of whether people are going to want to give. It's more than just raising money; you've got to give people a sense of potential."

One reason for the new drive to raise cash quickly is the fact that Clinton spent lavishly on what turned out to be a debacle in Iowa. Numbers circulating among fundraisers — but not confirmed by the campaign — suggest that the campaign may have as little as $15 million to $25 million left on hand. While that is enormous by historic standards, it is less than half the nearly $50.5 million she had at the end of September (when she enjoyed a significant advantage over Barack Obama's $36 million on hand).

What's more, campaign officials believe that Obama's Iowa victory has almost certainly been accompanied by a financial windfall for his campaign, particularly over the Internet, where he has had a far stronger operation than Clinton has. The Obama campaign declined to provide any figures, with spokesman Bill Burton saying only: "There's a lot of energy and enthusiasm, and it's continuing to increase."



Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1701153,00.html

[truthisfreedom]

1. Sad but true. I haven't contributed to any of them yet. I'm waiting for the winner.

I'm not going to fund them to fight each other the way they've been doing it, but I don't care what they say about any 'thugs.

[lvx35]

3. That's the right move. nt

[Lisa0825]

4. I'm still holding out too.

I might decide to contribute before a winner is selected, but I'm not done watching them hash it out for now. I have been leaning Edwards, but I am not solidly in that camp. I might decide to contribute if he looks like he'll be in for the long haul. Otherwise, I may wait for the general.

[murielm99]

5. That's what I am doing, too.

And all of them have been clamoring for money!

I wish I had a chosen candidate, but I am not sure at this point.

[SquireJons]

13. Why wait?

If you wait, then you may have absolutely no say at all in the eventual party nomination. I live in Virginia, and all of my favorite candidates may drop out before we even get to our primary if they don't get help now. That's why I just sent $25 to Edwards. He needs the money now, or it's going to be a two horse race (one's a dark horse and the other's a nag).

[customerserviceguy]

21. Hmm, a racist and a sexist reference in the same post

:-(

[Javaman]

14. I don't give anymore since they get all their dough from corps. nt

[Cha]

2. It's all so obscene,

though, isn't it? Or is just moi?

[frog92969]

9. It's very obscene

It's very American as well, therein lies the tragedy.

[JBoy]

15. By comparison with Canada

In the 2006 federal Liberal leadership race (which selected Stephane Dion), spending for each campaign was limited to $3.4 million. You could enter the race for just $50,000. Both figures were reduced from previous conventions.

[hoboken123]

19. Canada's population

Doesn't the US have ten times the population of Canada?

[demo dutch]

16. The whole election process is a disaster here!

[LeftyMom]

6. That money could do so much good.

We really need to rein this shit in somehow, it gets more insane every four years and we're learning less and less about policy stands while they waste more and more money attacking each other over stupid crap and making brainless ads about how much they love mom and apple pie.

[merwin]

7. More sensationalist bullshit. "as the result of her devastating loss".

Makes it sound like she got 0% of the vote.

I guess it's too much to expect for a news organization to actually report unbiased news.

[frog92969]

8. Oh, so those tears were real.

:nopity:

Maybe uncle Rupert will come to the rescue.

[saracat]

Delete Dupe

[saracat]

$100 million and she has a cash crunch? This is ridiculous! Sorry but it is.

Someone needs to manage cash better then.

[peacebird]

12. true! and we REALLY need true campaign finance reform.

[saracat]

10. .Delete Dupe

[Stuart G]

11. Say it ain't so, Shoeless Joe.......nt

[demo dutch]

17. Disastrous process.. a BILLION dollar president, it's a joke!

[MollieBradford]

18. Joe Trippi rumor`

he should talk.

[The_Winch]

20. Money Details and Assumptions

All hard data sources are listed in the URLs at the bottom.

As of Q3 filing, she had raised 75,036,928 to be used in the primary (plus another 10,000,000 from her Senate Campaign)

In Q4, she's said she raised about 20M total, so assuming the typical 75% primary ratio, that means she has raised 85M for the primary races.

At the end of Q3, she had 34,564,153 available to use on the primary (54% burn rate). She spent 7,541,227 a month in Q3. To get to the rumored 15-25M cash on hand, she would have spent 8-11 million a month in Q4, which is quite likely.

At this point in the 2004 race after Dean lost NH and IA, he only got 4,056,545 in the next month (and got just another 990,085 the month after that). If Clinton's new cash dried up to just 4M this month, that could be a huge problem.

Ron Paul likely had close to 15-20M in cash at Jan 1 and he said he needed another 23M to compete effectively through Feb 5. This is in a Republican race that is cheaper than running against an Obama.

And you need the money well before the actual primary to make ad buys soon enough.

If I had to guess Clinton needs to raise at least 20 million this month, maybe 30. She's maxed out too many big wigs, probably has 0-30% more individual donors than Ron Paul and has a LOT less enthusiasm from her donor base than Ron Paul. Not even Ron Paul can raise 20M in a month.

Yeah, I'd say she's in big trouble financially.

http://www.cfinst.org/president/data/Pres08Q3Table2.pdf
http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00431569/311820/
http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00431569/310541/
http://www.cfinst.org/pr/pdf/Jan_Table1.pdf
http://www.cfinst.org/pr/pdf/Table2_Feb.pdf
http://www.cfinst.org/pr/pdf/March_Table3.pdf