Now that we can no longer legally give donations to retire Hillary's campaign debt, I thought it might be a good time to reflect on the history of that debt since the end of the primary.
Will Bower of JUST SAY NO DEAL was kind enough to fill me in on the details of his role in relating information to the PUMAS that subsequently turned out to be a case of his repeating bad information that had been given him July 10, 2008, by two sources, John West (of the "300" Petition, "ClintonDems," "Democracy Workshop," and "I Own My Vote") and Cynthia Ruccia (of "Women for Fair Politics"), each of whom later contacted Caren Turner (of "ToGetHer4Us") to confirm with her that they had indeed been Will Bower's source.
John West later went on to reveal his source as having been Jamie Brazil -- who Will Bower believes to be a cousin of Hillary Clinton -- who said he had received that information in a conference call with Clinton finance-team leader, Jonathan Mantz. Indeed the same bad information from these sources made its way to a few individuals within the organization "Real Democrats USA," although they themselves were not responsible for passing that information on to other sources.
The Los Angeles Times reports that the Hillary debt had been nearly paid off when her final request email went out around Jan. 16. While she had to forgive $13 million that she had loaned her campaign, the rest of the debt had been reduced to $6 million of which $5 million was owed to Mark Penn, "her fired political strategist who had the problem/opportunity of working for two bosses until they found out."
Getting the debt down to $1 million by Jan. 16 for bills to vendors other than Mark Penn was a great achievement, and we may find it was all paid off, possibly except for Penn, before her being sworn in as Sec. of State, when the final reports are made. Congratulations to all PUMAs and other supporters of Hillary.
Hillary Clinton enlists Mom to help with this campaign debt thing
In an e-mail today with the promisory headline "One last request," Dorothy Rodham says, "This is our last chance to help Hillary pay down the debt from her history-making campaign."
She knows how much this would mean to Hillary "to help my Hillary in honor of all she's done to help our country throughout her life."
There's a new national economic ailment spreading across the country called "donor fatigue." Who would have thought after how many billions given to candidates the last two years?
Anyway, as soon as the ex-First Lady takes the oath as secretary of State any day now, political fundraising becomes illegal.
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William Chirolas brings 40 years of real-world business experience in
local, state, national, and international tax, pensions, and finance to
the world of blogging. A graduate of MIT, he calls the Boston area
home, except when visiting kids and grandkids.