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Clinton Hauling in Cash

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February 07, 2008 5:38 PM

ABC News' Kate Snow Reports: Sen. Hillary Clinton’s finance team is on cloud nine after a record haul from online donations since Super Tuesday.

On a conference call with financial backers, Clinton's finance team announced they had raised $7.5 million since February first -- $6.4 million of that came in through online donations in the 24 to 30 hours after polls closed on Tuesday.

Clinton’s Campaign Chairman, Terry McAuliffe, also said forty thousand new donors had signed up online since Super Tuesday.

It probably didn't hurt that the candidate herself mentioned her website in her speech in a New York ballroom Tuesday night, which was broadcast live on multiple networks.

"I hope that all of you will join our campaign at www.HillaryClinton.com, because you know that politics isn't a game," Clinton said that night.

McAuliffe called the record fundraising numbers "spectacular" and thanked donors for their "huge outpouring of support".

He confirmed, as ABC News had reported, that all of Clinton’s staff are being paid "100 percent".

On Wednesday, senior staff members had volunteered to take a pay cut for the month of February, but with money pouring in this morning, it was decided that they did not need to make such a sacrifice.

By way of comparison,  according to a ticker on Senator Barack Obama's campaign website, his campaign raised more than $7.5 million online since polls closed on February 5th.  The Obama campaign says they stopped the ticker counting at midday on Thursday.

But even with the new influx of money, McAuliffe and others on the call urged fundraisers to get to work.

"We need you to step it up," McAuliffe said.  "Get your money in. We need your help!" he said later.

Finance Director Jonathan Mantz said the campaign has already planned more than fifteen fundraising events in the month of February—from Washington DC to California, Wisconsin, New York, Boston, Florida, New Jersey, Texas and even in Senator Barack Obama's backyard of Chicago.

One major donor on the call, New York venture capitalist Alan Patricof, said he thought Hillary Clinton's personal loan of five million dollars to her campaign, announced yesterday, was a factor in prompting others to give big.

"I think Hillary's contribution to the campaign has been an additional factor… It showed people she was prepared to go to the line," Patricof said.

Another fundraiser from Oklahoma said he’s seeing a lot of women donate to Clinton—and not the soccer moms or security moms.

"What we’re getting are the 'CEO's of the household' moms," he told the call.

Pollster Mark Penn told donors the campaign was looking forward to battles in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania—where the candidate has double digit leads.

He acknowledged that some of the more immediate contests may be harder to win against Senator Barack Obama.

"Look I think we’ll have some bumps in the road," Penn said on the call.

But he argued that Clinton is the only candidate who can "beat John McCain and put Democrats back in the White House."

"Right now if it there was one thing, one word, dividing us from our opponent it would be 'substance'," Penn said.

February 7, 2008 in Bush, George W. | Permalink | User Comments (41)

User Comments

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Every day shows more clearly that the Clintons are 24-carat phonies! Wah! I'm running out of money! Whoops -- no I'm not! Wah! My staff is working for no salary! Whoops -- no they're not! Wah! I have no money for ads, so I demand to debate Obama every hour on the half hour! Whoops -- actually, I DO have money for ads!

On and on the Clinton trick-bag rolls.

How much are you gonna take, America?

Posted by: Mark | Feb 7, 2008 5:47:11 PM

Why couldn't Team Clinton figure out how to use the internet before Tuesday? I smell something fishy about these numbers she's reporting. Maybe they lifted the $2300 threshold limitation, and all of her maxed out donors are having a ball.

Posted by: Vote4BO | Feb 7, 2008 5:54:07 PM

Actually, the post is incorrect. If you read the article and all of the news on this subject, the Clinton camp never once said they were running out of money, nor did they say they weren't paying their staff. If you read carefully, the lead in stories for this is that the campaign workers OFFERED to give up their salaries for a month. It was a blurb. It was not put out by the Clinton camp. It was a comment. Her campaign spokespeople went on record right away when the question was raised if this were true. Their response was that the OFFER had been made, but it was NOT happening -- to which they added that not only was it not necessary, but that they'd done extremely well with online donations and that the Senator had loaned her campaign $5 million.

There are no tricks to this story.

Posted by: Julia | Feb 7, 2008 5:57:42 PM

Take off the blinders, Julia. If you don't think this was all carefully crafted, manipulated and spun by Team Clinton for maximum sympathy and contribution generation, you're remarkably naive.

Posted by: Mark | Feb 7, 2008 6:04:32 PM

Ok, Hillary, just release your Tax returns. Americans want a President who is trustworthy. Obama already released his Tax return, so now it is your turn. Be straight with America.

Posted by: Cortez | Feb 7, 2008 6:07:02 PM

If the campain has no cash problem then why the big loan from the greatest bank manager of the US: Hillary? This is very fishy, they have said something and found themselves into a difficult situation and there is damage control. This campain is highly disorganized, Hillary should do as Romney and call it quit.

Posted by: BKMC | Feb 7, 2008 6:07:43 PM

Julia - Seriously. Candidates don't make loans to their campaigns unless they have to. And paid staffers don't offer to go unpaid unless things are really grim.

Posted by: Vote4BO | Feb 7, 2008 6:10:04 PM

Hey, I'm a 64 year old guy that's got 3 grown daughters that need to see what their gender can do for the USA instead of just another windbag of my gender. I'll vote for Obama when he is the DEM nominee but not before. Obama's statement that his people will not vote for Hillary if she is the DEM candidate is an indication of what kind of president he intends to be.

Posted by: Norris | Feb 7, 2008 6:17:13 PM

People do the math, if Senator Clinton provided a $5M loan to the campaign and you've raised $7.5M, therefore you have $2.5M remaining for salary, etc. If you want to catch up with the Obama campaign or maintain, you all have a lot of work to do. It sounds like poor management to me. No, but she has 35 years of experience -- lol.

Posted by: wahs2008 | Feb 7, 2008 6:20:31 PM

One of two possibilities is true:

(1) The whole thing - the Clinton loan and the staffer rumor - was a smart, sleezy way to kickstart the fundraising and deceive voters into contributing

or

(2) The Clinton campaign is in a sad, sorry state and about to go bankrupt.

Posted by: Vote4BO | Feb 7, 2008 6:22:37 PM

So will she be repaying herself the $5 million right away?...did 2/3 of the $7.5 million that people contributed basically go to Hillary's personal account???

Posted by: Jamil | Feb 7, 2008 6:39:58 PM

Hillary outsmarted the empty suit once again. And he is starting to come across as disrespectful for all the good work Hillary has done. There is an I HATE HILLARY campaign out there and he looks like he is running this.

She let him shoot his mouth off like the current president, then once again laid the facts on the table. I am from massachusetts and this is why I voted for her, she is smarter than he is, like most women are smarter than men. They have patience and do not fall into the mano-y-mano games that Barack wants to play, basically she told Barack to shut up today, but in a kind way.

Posted by: Brian | Feb 7, 2008 6:44:54 PM

Hillary please don't release your tax returns. It's really the business of yours and the IRS. I personally don't care to know anything about it, I have my own taxes to worry about. I don't care how much money you make or how much you spend. You have presented the citizens with your platform and what your concerns are and they are all about issues to improve this country.

I switched my support from B.O. when I saw the pics. from the State of the Union Address knowing that we cannot have another leader that is no more metanlly mature than the one that we have now. And then last night seeing him on the news saying that all Hillary supporters will support him if he wins the nomination but his supporters won't support her if she wins the nomination. I hope he wasn't referring to the Blacks because I'm black and I'm already supporting her after starting out supporting him. His campaign lacks substance and ideas and has set back the Civil Rights movement by about 45 years.

GO HILLARY! GO HILLARY! GO HILLARY!

YOU GO GIRL!!!

Posted by: Jamey | Feb 7, 2008 6:58:02 PM

This is classic:


CNN: The Situation Room reports

Jeanie Moss reporting:

Obama Girl doesn't even vote on Super Tuesday.

Seems she was ill.

Of course a couple of hours later at an Obama party, in a nice short dress and with a drink in hand, she braved the illness that prevented her vote, and made a very lengthy appearance at a post-vote party.

PS and she is actually lip-syncing the songs. A white girl is singing.

frauds LOL ;)

Posted by: 2009 Where Are You | Feb 7, 2008 7:05:03 PM

Can you spell M-A-R-C R-I-C-H????

Posted by: Chukkal | Feb 7, 2008 7:13:28 PM

Bill Clinton gets paid 10 million $$$ a year from the country of Dubai for consultation work. He has done wonders for that country just as he did for our country.

WE NEED MORE CLINTONS IN THE WORLD.

GO HILLARY! GO HILLARY! GO HILLARY!

Posted by: Jamey | Feb 7, 2008 7:59:40 PM


Hey Obama fans. How do you propose to get 2000 delegates before the convention?

There is no winner take all states. The delegates will continue to get chopped right down the middle, until of course all the Clinton backed Super delegates nominate Clinton.

This latest attempt to HYPE the money issue failed.

The more this thing moves along to the convention tied , the more the Bill and Hillary Clinton led democratic party will be in position to win with super delegates.

How does Obama expect to gain the support away from the base of the party ????

Posted by: tom | Feb 7, 2008 8:11:59 PM

Sorry, Mark. No blinders here. That story came out today. The 7th. Super Tuesday was February and she made the call for donations that evening. They started coming in on February 6th. Unless you know some way that ABC News can report this story two days ago...the bottom line is, you're obviously an Obama supporter. He's raised money. She's raised money -- she's equalled if not beaten him in the last couple of days.

Posted by: Julia | Feb 7, 2008 9:05:52 PM

Why is she simply repeating Obama, both in actions, and almost verbatim from his speeches?

Is it because he has better ideas and things to say in the first place *eye roll*

Hillary, get your own lines, you are embaressing yourself!

But imitation is of course the sincerest form of flattery. I'm glad she's an Obama supporter like the rest of the country.

Posted by: SaSa | Feb 7, 2008 9:10:51 PM

Even if Obama has upperhand in saturday or upcoming primaries, do not give up and fight for your delegates. Even one deleate count. It's an asset gong into next primaries.

Posted by: dash | Feb 7, 2008 9:11:47 PM

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