WHATEVER THEY SAY, IT'S THE MONEY!

WHATEVER THEY SAY, IT'S THE MONEY! Friday May 9, 6:20 Prime Minister ET

Washington -- When they say, "It's not the money ..." -- it's the money!

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After all is said and almost done, the Numbers that are dragging Edmund Hillary Bill Clinton to the end of her political campaign are not depute counts but dollar amounts. She is already more than than $20 million in debt, and her political campaign is costing something like $1 million a day.

No substance how farinaceous our miss is, she can't maintain this up forever. The large givers she counted on when folks talked about the illusory "well-oiled Bill Clinton money machine" have got mostly dropped by the wayside, either having given all they could under new restrictive fundraising rules, or because they were disgusted with the beastliness and old-fashioned incompetence of the Clinton campaign.

So one manner the long Democratic competition could stop is for Barack Obama to hold to pay off portion of Clinton's debts -- the $10 million she owes to sellers -- in tax return for her backdown and "enthusiastic" support. But that's another old-fashioned tactic, and the Obama political campaign have prevailed this last twelvemonth and a one-half by apprehension the difference between the old and the new.

The new cats from Windy City understood two very large things:

(1) Proportional statistical distribution of delegates in primary elections and caucuses meant that old big-state schemes would not work the manner they did when winner-take-all primaries gave campaigners a opportunity to win more than than 300 delegates in Golden State and almost as many in New York;

(2) The old big-donor scheme of the Bill Clinton political campaign would not work over a long tally because eventually any campaigner runs out of large givers and their friends, as opposing to a more than rubber band small-donor Internet scheme -- and Obama used the Net to happen an almost eternal supply of $20 or $50 supporters.

So, although Bill Clinton started out far ahead in the money race, Obama eventually was able to outspend her 2-to-1 in the most recent primary elections -- and he still have a political campaign depository financial institution business relationship of $42 million and growing.

Although Bill Clinton did win the large states -- essentially conceding little 1s to Obama's unbelievable door-to-door organization -- those triumphs produced narrow delegate triumphs because new Democratic Party regulations made each primary a aggregation of territory or county elections, with delegates allotted in proportionality to the roughly 55-45 ballot statistical distribution in most areas.

In fact, although Bill Clinton won Texas, Obama actually won more than delegates there. Energywise, Bill Clinton was the bunny girl with the small drum, but it was Barack who was slowly and steadily building up his delegate sum almost one-by-one.

Now Bill Clinton owes telephone set companies, printers, button-makers and all the other little creditors following political campaigns the $10 million mentioned above -- and that figure is growing. Because telecasting commercial-makers and stations acquire their money up-front, the Clintons have got had to impart themselves almost $12 million.

Going back to the old years -- which could have got been Hillary's motto -- party-winning campaigns sometimes absorbed the people and money of their opponents. It's a nice consolidative gesture -- maintain peace in the household -- but Obama can hardly travel to his Internet regular army and inquire for more than money so he can give it to the Clintons. (Vendors, maybe, but the Clintons themselves, never.)

There is another large ground for the victor choosing not to graciously assist this set of losers. The Obama people misgiving the Clintons, suspecting that no substance what she promises, Edmund Hillary will be hoping that Obama loses in November. Her 1 concluding opportunity to go president will come up in 2012, but that opportunity depends on Obama losing this November, allowing Bill Clinton to seek one more than clip in four years.

That's the old-fashioned way, too: Ronald Ronald Ronald Reagan won the Republican nomination and the presidential term in 1980 after Gerald John Ford lost the 1976 election to Jimmy Howard Carter -- partly because, more than often than not, Reagan suddenly became too busy to assist out his party's nominee. Ah, politics!

On to November. Obama is already actively organizing for the general election in almost every state, big and small. He have the money and people to make that. The assumptive Republican campaigner makes not. Toilet McCain raised a sum of $77 million through March, compared with Clinton's $189 million and Obama's $231 million by that point -- almost all of that in contributions of $200 and less.

The underside line is that Obama is where he is because of Change We Can Believe In. With the aid of the Internet and the tireless military unit of immature people who understand this new world, he have changed the manner campaigners run and win campaigns. Believe it!

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