For their first public appearance together since that last debate, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will be attending the same campaign event in (wait for it) Unity, New Hampshire. Some things you just can’t make up.
As Hillary Rodham Clinton prepared to return to life in the Senate and announced that she will campaign with Sen. Barack Obama in New Hampshire on Friday, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee began reaching out to female voters who had formed the backbone of Clinton’s support in the primary season.
The Obama-Clinton event will take place in the town of Unity, in the southwest corner of a swing state that Obama hopes to carry in November. The symbolism goes beyond the town’s name, as Clinton and Obama each won 107 votes there in the January primary.
Of course, Senator Clinton wants something from Obama in exchange for her support, and no, I’m not talking about the Vice presidency. Something a little more urgent: debt relief.
ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos Reports: Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., spoke by phone Sunday night, the first time the presumptive Democratic nominee and his former rival have exhanged words since their private meeting in Washington weeks ago.
Clinton and Obama discussed retiring Clinton’s over $10 million in campaign debt, a conversation Democratic sources called “constructive”.
Hmmm. Sunday they talk for the first time since their meeting at Senator Feinstein’s house prior to Clinton’s concession/endorsement speech, and Friday they will appear together for the first time on the same political stage with Clinton asking her supporters to vote for the man she called not ready to field 3 am calls in the wee hours of the night. And the very “constructive” conversation they had was all about “retiring Clinton’s over $10 million in . . . debt.”
Yes, indeed, money does make the world go round. Of course, she’s under the gun, so to speak. She only has until the end of August to pay off her debt to herself or the maximum she can receive on the loans she extended her campaign will be $250,000 under current finance law. That’s quite a “haircut” to take even if your husband can generate several hundreds of thousands of dollars every time he shows up at a speaking engagement and has multi-millionaire friends who have helped him and her earn over $100 million dollars since he left office in 2001.
So I suppose Obama will be sending out an email appeal to his supporters soon asking them to donate to his new best friend, Hillary Clinton. Well, you can do what you like, I suppose. In light of the FISA cave in, however, and the absence of leadership by both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on that issue, I’m not inclined to send either of them any of the dollars I don’t have. I have enough debts of my own, thank you very much, and no good reason to fund the lifestyles and political campaigns of those who haven’t stood up for my civil liberties lately.
You see, Senators Obama and Clinton, I don’t have special tax relief or regulatory deals for my business interests that I need politicians to look out for. I’m not going to ask for special favors to effect a corporate merger, or get a government contract. All I need is for my leaders to stand behind the Constitution, the only government document that grants me anything that I value – individual rights like freedom of speech and protection from unwarranted invasions of my privacy by my government, to name but two. So when I see either or both of you standing up for the rights I was supposed to have been guaranteed under that Constitution, that is when I scrape together a few bucks to send in for your political campaigns, past (Clinton) and future (Obama).
And not before. You see, online funding of political campaigns may be the new public financing system of the 21st Century, but that doesn’t mean those of us who send in our donations by PayPal don’t want something for our money. And unlike other political donors it won’t cost you anything in terms of your personal integrity, though it does require one essential ingredient that, unfortunately, a lot of Democrats in Congress seem to lack these days: a spine.
Qui bono?
I don’t think McCain is going to benefit frankly because i will vote for Obama. But I have no reason to fund him or Clinton if they refuse to stand up for the 4th amendment. Obama would have to die or the elections be called off for him not to be the President. And he got in that position in large part because of his fund raising prowess among we, the little people. If he can’t support his supporters, than I don’t need to send him money I don’t have.
He might as well have been on the payroll of the telecom industry like Jay Rockefeller for all the good our campaign contributions have done us.
Nothing wrong with showing them how you think.
Like many people, I’m sure, I have gotten e-mails and letters this week from Obama requesting contributions. I’ve sent some money a couple of times in the last two months but I’m not feeling especially contributory right now. My stomach is a little unsettled over the looming loss of our 4th Amendment rights. A principled stand on this issue by our nominee might go a long way toward soothing my political indigestion. We’ll just have to wait and see how it goes. I am not, however, very optimistic. Meanwhile, our cash is going out to pay property taxes due this month and the increasing gas costs just to get back and forth to work. Never mind trying to put back some cash in anticipation of what propane will cost this winter to get us through the heating season. Maybe Hillary and Obama might take a few minutes to talk about some of us out here in the hinterlands who are “under the gun”. Wish I could get some of that good ol’ debt relief that Hill’ is going to enjoy in the near future.
I’ve gotten emails, phone calls and snail mail. I must be on a lot of lists, lol.
I simply cannot imagine giving money to either one of them right now, and certainly not for the purpose of making sure Hillary gets some of her and Bill’s millions back. They pumped some of their own personal fortune into the campaign long after it ceased looking like a wise bet. That is their money, of course, and their business. But to ask people who have to work for a living to cover their bad bet is ridiculous.
Like many things Obama is doing, I understand why he is helping her out. He wants in the worst way to be President, and it appears he is going to do whatever it takes– shilling for the wealthy Clintons, endorsing the shredding of the Constitution, groveling to AIPAC, and appointing anti-Progressive business-as-usual imperialists to his advisory group– to accomplish that. Again, that is his business, but I can’t see how any working person is going to come out of pocket to help him along as he takes a hard right turn away from the interests of individual Americans.
I’m writing a political bombshell: ‘The Metamorphosis of Barack Obama into Bill and Hill Clinton’. Every day it looks as if we get closer to where we started at the beginning of the primaries. For reasons of transparency, checks and balances and logic, I’m not yet able to give my judgment on the Obama presidency. No matter what, you have to be bananas to send money to Obama when it will go to financing the Clintons’ cushy lifestyle.
if you’re going to give money, give to a worthy cause.