Winner Pays?
By Geraldine Ferraro has a plan for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) to recoup her sizable campaign debt: Have Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) fundraisers pick up the tab.
After a long primary season, the Clinton campaign’s expenditures have far exceeded the amount of donations it has received so far, and the campaign has accumulated debt of more than $19 million, according to campaign finance reports. Much of that debt consists of unpaid salaries and bills to vendors. . . .
This election, losing candidates have asked for contributions to retire their campaigns debt. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Gov. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.), and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) are engaged in such campaigns and have found help from other candidates.
For starters, I can’t imagine that Dodd’s or Giuliani’s debts approach anything like the sums drawn up by the Clinton campaign. That said, I’ll leave it to others to critique or defend the suggestion on its merits. The fact that this is being suggested by the second most loathsome ex-Vice Presidential candidate in recent history, however, gives me pause. Oh, hell. At this point, if Ferraro recommended that we all spay or neuter our pets, I’d assume she had something against kittens.