If you needed further evidence that Hillary Clinton was critically wounded yesterday, we now have this:
…[Clinton’s] campaign has just confirmed that she’d already lent her coffers $5 million of her own money in late January. A just-issued statement from her camp:
The loan illustrates Sen. Clinton’s commitment to this effort and to ensuring that our campaign has the resources it needs to compete and win across this nation. We have had one of our best fundraising efforts ever on the Web today and our Super Tuesday victories will only help in bringing more support for her candidacy.
Her advisers says she’s considering another loan because money is tight now — the mega-primaries yesterday were quite the financial drain. And although she won many states yesterday, including some very big states like New York and California, the victories weren’t resoundingly decisive enough — especially when you look at the extremely tight delegate matchup right now — to inspire a lot of new giving, Pat says.
Plus, many of her donors had already maxed out for the primary season and more of her money than that raised by the Obama campaign was pledged to the general cycle and can’t be used right now. Mr. Obama’s campaign boasted a haul in January of $32 million with a lot of new, smaller donors.
An honest assessment of this race would give Clinton less than a 25% of chance of pulling it out. I’d actually give her less of a chance than that.
For Obama supporters that have contacted me in email or made comments in both orange and green, I’m not interested in becoming a tool of the Obama campaign. I don’t care if I am raising expectations for Obama, I’m telling you what I think, which is, hopefully, why you read this blog.