I he is smart, he will put a dollar limit now on how much he would contribute to paying her debt.  It would not include enough to pay off all of Hillary's loans to her own campaign or Mark Penn.  If she then runs up the tab, it would be at her own expense and Penn's.

Noam,  I read elsewhere that such a deal isn't possible (e.g. the link below).  What's your take?

www.slate.com/.../debt-relief.aspx

Obama can't use his previously-raised money to pay off Clinton's debt.  

What he can and likely will do is use his fundraising apparatus to help her raise some money to pay those bills.  Which basically means Clinton isn't spending Barack's money to run against him, but the money of future democratic donors.

I think that a lot of his $10 and $25 supporters are going to be very angry if he pays off her debt. The reason she has so much debt is because she stayed in this race two months after it became obvious that she was not going to catch up to him in delegates. And those two months were spent in negative campaigning against him. It's a nice gesture, but it may backfire with his supporters. Also, she way over-paid Mark Penn for his incompetent services. Why should Obama take on that debt? I think it would be honorable for him to do fundraising for her, and to perhaps even pay off the vendors and local business owners she still owes money to, but not herself (let her pay her own debt) or Mark Penn.

However, I can see that he needs to avoid antagonizing her  because he's going to need her to campaign for him with her base.

One final question about all this: Has Hillary even indicated that she'd want him to take on her debt? Frankly, it's hard to imagine that she could stand the thought of him being magnanimous toward her.

"On the other hand, you really do want to avoid antagonizing her at this point."

Why? What can Hillary herself possibly do that she has not already done? Endorse John McCain? Run as an independent (she's missed the filing deadlines in a number of states already)? Yeah, you want to make nice with her supporters, but I'm not sure they care either way how much debt Hillary carries forward to her next campaign. Hillary has passed the point where she personally has anything to bargain with, except her campaign's email list. It's about her supporters now, not Hillary herself.

Good point, Noam. Hillary's apparent attempt to attack Obama on his dime is ridiculous. However, in the tradition of uniting the party, I don't have a problem with Obama helping to raise money to pay off vendors and staff (even Penn, though that one is nauseating). But as an Obama donor, I have no interest in seeing him help to pay off her personal debt. She can eat that.

Nice piece , Noam. It is time for Hillary to withdraw and I say that as a supporter of hers. She has no chance mathematically at the nomination. Her only hope would be for an anti - Obama bombshell to drop from the sky. That would have an immediate impact on perceptions of him. Obama has pulled even with her among superdelegates and he will soon go over the top in delegates needed for the nomination. It is over. Finis.

Rhubarbs-

I agree. Hillary has no real options, other than to further damage herself politically.

She may also be further damaging herself financially as well.

Indeed, there's a particular kind of poetry in the fact that HRC may not be able to recoup the $11.4 million she herself has loaned to her own campaign.

According to Jacob Leibenluft at Slate:

_______________________________________________________________________________

Debt retirement gets a little more complicated when candidates lend their own money to their campaign. After an election is over, any campaign contributions that go toward repaying the candidate's own loans serve, in practice, as money directly into a politician's pocket. As a result, campaign law (PDF) now limits to $250,000 the amount a campaign committee can repay the candidate after the election. In the case of the Democratic primary, the election will end when a nominee is selected in Denver. So unless Clinton is able to raise enough money to pay herself back by then, she'll have to write off millions of dollars she lent to her campaign.

_______________________________________________________________________________

In other words, Hillary may have to write off as much as $11.4 million of her own money. . .

Actually, that should have been: Hillary may have to write off as much as $11.15 million of her own money. . .

liberal,

If Hillary is waiting for scandal to drop on Obama's head, she is actually better off quitting now.  The party is far more likely spontaneously to turn to her if she makes nice for a while.  If not, some kind of unforeseen Obama meltdown might just ignite a draft Gore movement.  As far as the nomination goes, she has nothing more to gain by running.

Which raises the question, why is she doing it?  You've heard my theory and it ain't pretty.

If Obama offers the money I donated to him to Hillary Clinton, I'm going to demand it back.  If I had wanted her campaign to have it, I would have given it to her in the first place.

Roidubouloi: Well, God knows what Hillary is thinking but I can only surmise that she may be hoping something might turn up that would gravely damage Obama. She might reason that she is close enough in overall delegates to be within striking distance if something major should transpire; this race is in the end game stage unless a bombshell is dropped very soon. My guess is that she will announce that she is withdrawing from the race on May 21, the day after she loses the Oregon primary.

And did anyone notice how Romney ate his own debt? Terrible thing to say, but Mitt Romney has more class than HIllary Clinton. As to Huckabee, he ran around saying how great it was to be campaigning against McCain so McCain could make gracious victory speeches. Tis terrible, the Republicans have been far classier than our Hillary. To say she  running as a Republican insults them.

Blackton: Did you forget how nasty Romney was in the primaries? TNR editorialized on this, at least in the print version. I suspect that if Mr. Mitt donned women's clothing and put on a Hillary mask, you would not be saying nice things about him.

I think the key point is that he can NOT use any money you, we, or I have donated to this point to help her pay off her debt. Well, maybe $2300, but nothing substantial. He can help her raise funds in the future to retire it, which gives each and every one of us the ability to contribute to THAT cause or not. I'm sure many would not, myself included. But many would and Obama's attempt would be the necessary ingredient towards healing the wounds.

I agree that he wants to kiss her ass a little bit. What she can still do is either work really hard to get her large numbers of supporters to come out for Barack in November. Or not. "Or not" isn't an option I'd like to see her take. So, by all means, offer to help her out.

I actually can think of a positive for Obama if Clinton keeps going (although the negatives outweigh, IMHO.)  If there are a large number of Clinton donors who wouldn't give a red cent to Obama, and Clinton continues to do what, in essence, are Anti-McCain ads without mentioning Obama, the Clinton campaign becomes kind of like a 547 running negative ads against Obama's opposition.  If she says anything outrageous, Obama has distance from and deniability of the message.  Attacks against McCain are funded by people who don't even support Obama!  Brilliant!

I'd like to make a point about Mitt Romney, who spent more than $40 million for his failed campaign.  (Disclosure: I'm a Republican, but didn't vote for Romney or McCain in my state's primary.  Romney had never won an election as a Reagan conservative, and the presidency isn't the place to start.)  While Romney attacked McCain in the primaries, once it was obvious -- after Super Tuesday -- that McCain had the nomination in hand, Romney withdrew, endorsing McCain to save the party a bruising, internecine battle (like the one you're having).  Cynics will carp that Romney is just positioning himself as McCain's running mate, but he spent over $40 million of his own money; if he had wanted to damage McCain, he could have stayed in, spending another $5 million or so.  That he chose another path -- rather than staying in, and trying to extort either the VP spot or help retiring his campaign debts, as HIllary is doing -- speaks well of his character.  So yes, Blackton, Romney has more class than Hillary Clinton, but that's a low bar.

Garyatlarge: I can't believe people's political calculus sometimes. Romney came nowhere near as close to McCain as Hillary has come to Obama.

My bet is the Supers in Washington told her (in even louder voices than before Indiana and North Carolina) that if she wants to keep on running, that's her choice, but she can no longer claim that she is not hurting the party if her campaign rhetoric and ads are attacking Obama rather than focusing on the issues.

I think she realizes that she risks losing even more supers if she continues with the negative and divisive campaign. And what a divisive campaign it has been!

Even now she simply won’t give up her baby-boomer penchant for identity politics: She plays the politics of race and the politics gender. Again and again in interviews in Oregon she is saying “I’m in this election for my daughter and for your daughter.”

And, of course, who can forget her message to the super delegates the day after she took a thumpin’ in North Carolina and squeaked by with a 2% “win” in Indiana (which should have been another “Pennsylvania” or “Ohio” for her): “I’m able to win hard-working white voters”?

Hillary’s race and gender politics don’t seem to be working, however, as she now slides behind Obama in super delegate support. Still, the Democrats must ask themselves what they must do in the wake of Clinton’s divisive campaign.

gary, I agree.  Although Romney didn't come as close to getting the nomination as Clinton did, it's not as if he was in Rudy territory.  He did have a lot of conservative voices backing him (NR, anyone?), and he was a viable candidate.  He just knew that at that point, he couldn't win.  As a good businessman, he knew when to cut his losses and not put in good money when he's already lost.  His current standing in the party?  Not bad.

As an Obama donor, I have to say I'm less than excited to think that my money may go to pay off debts accrued by attacking my candidate.  However, I would consider it acceptable if he paid of her other (non-Penn) third party debts prior to Indiana / NC.

We need some lawyers expert on campaign finance law to weigh in here.

Last week, Rhubarbs told me that the Clinton campaign is legally OBLIGATED to retire its debt, including debt to the candidate herself.  But then here Joseph Cuomo's post indicates the exact opposite, that, in fact, if she doesn't retire the debt to herself before the formal end of the campaign, she forfeits that money.

And then now we have the entirely seperate question of whether Obama is permitted to retire her debt for her.

If JC and not Rhubs is correct, then this provides the key to understanding Clinton's continued campaign: It's all about the Benjamins.  The new small-donor, internet funding pipeline has changed the game on when campaigns end.  The big individual donors are finished with Hillary.  I bet you could count on one hand the number of $2300 campaign contributions Clinton received since last Tuesday.  In past election cycles, where such large contributions accounted for the bulk of a campaign's working budget, campaigns had to fold up the tent the minute that well of funding ran dry.   And really as soon as the candidate's chances of electoral victory had evaporated, there wasn't any point in continuing.  You aren't going to persuade anyone with $1000 to spend to throw it away on a $5 chunk of grilled salmon,  some overcooked asparagus, and a chance to hear a sure loser wax eloquent about all the good he would do if only more people liked him.  But this whole internet gizmo is entirely different.  Look at all the overspending on ridiculous longshots on Intrade.  There may well be a couple hundred thousand Clinton supporters out there who are enough infatuated with her and with the romance of the come-from-behind victory to be willing to pass on another $50-100.  But of course to realize such fund-raising potential, she still has to created the appearance of a campaign and of still being in it to win it.

but isn't the money she can earn on-line more than offset by the money she is spending every day to campaign? She must be spending tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) each day. And that incoming money is going to quickly dwindle as more and more of her supporters realize the game is up. The die hard supporters may still be delusional enough to think she has a shot at the nomination, but I can't imagine that most of her supporters will continue to think so for very long. Obama got five more superdelegate endorsements today.

Romney's net worth of a third of a Bill dwarfs Hill-Bill's 100 Mills. Hell's bells. Mitt can make up the 35 he dropped by sticking his stash in a no-load index fund for a year or two while he sits on the porch contemplating the Meaning of Life. It's not like being out 35 big ones is a problem for the dude.

I gave to Obama and will wait until the General to do so again. I do not want to help retire his opponent's folly.

I have been giving money to candidates far wealthier than I for decades--as my salary has risen, so have my contributions. It is a form of self-mutilation I practice, like those tribal women who stretch their lower lips to grotesque proportions using increasingly larger discs, as a way to appear more beautiful to those around them.

Speaking of money, what does $348,000 get you?

If you're the Myanmar military junta, you get two years of lobbying services courtesy DCI Group. DCI's CEO Dirk Goodyear just quit as the McCain-picked head of the upcoming Republican National Convention.

Fabulous timing.

Tip of the hat to Newsweek for posting the story. That's the kind of straight talk this election cycle needs.

Apparently it's illegal for Obama to retire Hillary's debt. So that's not going to happen.

But it's completely legal for Obama supporters to send mason jars filled with their urine to Hillary's campaign office in Ballston.

Williamyard: That is a good datum to know. I have loathed the regime in Myanmar for many years and regard Daw Aung Saw Suu Kyi as a shining light. We do indeed need more reporting of that nature.

Rhubarbs is exactly right. And I hope that virginiacentrist is, too.

May I propose a debt-retiring scheme that any Obama supporter would get behind? The Hillary Clinton dunking booth: two balls for $2300. She'd be in the black in no time at all.

Yes, it's just you, Noam ....

"But isn't the money she can earn on-line more than offset by the money she is spending every day to campaign?"

I don't know the answer to that question, and I doubt anyone does outside the Clinton campaign.

I must admit, I was surprised at the WV ad buys.  If my theory is correct, I would've thought it'd be enough to maintain her aggressive stance on the stump, rely on free media to create the impression that her campaign is still alive and has some few shreds of hope, and then blast her likely donor pool with email solicitations.  The ads certainly don't jive with that theory.  But then, maybe airtime in WV is so cheap that it seemed worth it just for the MSM amplification that the ads have in fact given her.

aeromonas-

You write: "Last week, Rhubarbs told me that the Clinton campaign is legally OBLIGATED to retire its debt, including debt to the candidate herself.  But then here Joseph Cuomo's post indicates the exact opposite, that, in fact, if she doesn't retire the debt to herself before the formal end of the campaign, she forfeits that money."

The catch here, aeromonas, is that, according to Jacob Leibenluft at Slate, the Clinton campaign is indeed obligated to pay back all of its debt--"unless the candidate is the one owed the money." Then, once the campaign is concluded (once there is a Dem nominee), there is a cap on the amount of money the campaign can legally pay back to its own candidate: $250,000.

Hillary has already leant her own campaign some $11.4 million. Her campaign has until the Dem convention in Denver (when the nominee is officially selected) to pay back HRC as much of that $11.4 million as it can. After the Dem nominee is selected, however, if her campaign still owes her that $11.4 million, then Hillary can only collect $250,000 of it. Which would leave her a whopping $11.15 million in the hole.

Obama has the choice of continuing to do as he has always done; Obama has made every effort to not push at Hillary's supporters, or Hillary. When this is over, they will not be able to point to Obama as anything except the person who won the nomination fair and square. He has always said she can run her campaign however she want, and she can run for as long as she wants; he is on the record in several places makes these statements.

I think offering to help Hillary retire her debts is 1) the decent thing to do, and 2) a good way to get her to actively campaign on his behalf in the states she can put into play that he does not.

This is all in addition to the simple fact that if she loses poorly the media will have a field day (poor loser = controversy = news story). And, I doubt the DNC would be favorably disposed to helping her run another campaign as a democrat ever again.