Hillary Clinton and the Ghosts of 2006

[Hope And Change]

Hillary Clinton and the Ghosts of 2006

Posted December 4, 2007 | 05:11 PM (EST)

Maybe Hillary Clinton's right that going back to the candidates' past illuminates their character. I'm not sure we need to know whether they spilled their milk in kindergarten, but let's look at the 2006 election. Barack Obama's Hope Fund PAC, Hillary claims, deliberately contributed to candidates in key early primary states that year, with the aim of securing their later support. Never mind that the Hope Fund gave to a broad spectrum of candidates -- including, oddly, Hillary herself. If she really wants Democratic voters to judge their potential nominees on their 2006 choices, she may not like the judgments they make.

2006 was a Democratic opportunity, and grassroots supporters dug deep and then deeper to finance an ever-expanding array of competitive races. Hillary, meanwhile, made a conscious decision to raise $52 million for a Senate campaign that she could have won in her pajamas, spent $40.8 million (to beat a token opponent who spent less than $6 million), and transferred the rest to her presidential campaign.

You could say she was just playing the game, but John Edwards and Barack Obama, in comparison, campaigned throughout the country to support worthy Democratic candidates, while doing negligible fundraising for their own pending campaigns. The Edwards campaign ended that season still in debt from 2004. Obama emerged with less than a million in the bank. Their top priorities really did seem to be helping other Democrats win a critical election, instead of subordinating all other goals to their own personal futures.

For another contrast, the entire Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee raised only $107 million that season, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee $103 million. Hillary spent more than a third as much as either of these, more than any candidate in America that year. Only the self-funded Jon Corzine has ever spent more for a Senate race in our history. And she did this for a race that was never in doubt.

Imagine if she'd transferred $20 million into the dozen congressional campaigns that Democrats lost by margins as close as a few hundred votes. Or into Harold Ford's Senatorial campaign, to help close a $5-million gap with Republican Bob Corker. By late summer it was clear that the Democrats had a huge opportunity and were scrambling for the funds to respond to it. A few extra ads or mailings might well have tipped the balance in more of these races. That's why so many of us were stretching to contribute, even when it hurt. Hillary made different decisions. Much as may have been true with her support of a recent Iran vote so reckless that Senator James Webb called it "Dick Cheney's pipe dream," her priority was election-year positioning.

If we compare Hillary's actions to those of the ordinary citizens whose time and money made a critical difference, she comes up short. She also comes up short compared to her main Democratic rivals. While the money she spent may have gained her a few extra points of electoral margin, it did nothing to shift the power from an administration she said she opposed. If we're going to use 2006 as a measure of presidential character, we might remember the choices Hillary could have made -- and the priorities she chose instead.


Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of Soul of a Citizen and The Impossible Will Take a Little While. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly email [e-mail] with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-loeb/hillary-clinton-and-the-g_b_75327.html

[Eagle_Eye]

1. Paul Loeb skillfully spins one key point.

He states:

"Hillary, meanwhile, made a conscious decision to raise $52 million for a Senate campaign that she could have won in her pajamas, spent $40.8 million (to beat a token opponent who spent less than $6 million), and transferred the rest to her presidential campaign."

Sure, she could have won the Senate campaign with a bus tour and a handful of unpaid volunteers. The fact of the matter is, she was running for PRESIDENT in 2006, she was just confining her efforts to New York state. The Presidential race was on long before she announced it was on.

Don't let the main stream media define when an election cycle starts. The election is in progress when the candidates are campaigning. If people want to be one of the crowd, they follow what the press says. If people want to be winning Democrats, they need to make up their own minds.

[karynnj]

2. Don't forget the "Hey John" attack in October 2006.

In late 2006, various pundits were citing exactly the information is the first few paragraphs and the fact that Senator Kerry raised more money than anyone - other than the party funds for Democratic candidates, defended all the vet candidates successfully from swiftboating, and like Edwards and Obama campaigned for many them as something that could help Kerry and hurt Hillary.

Then a brand new blog started attacking Kerry for not transferring more of his 2004 to the candidates, ignoring that he had leveraged some of that money and his email list to generate $14 million in campaign contributions that the candidates could use directly. His PAC was limited to $2,300 an election per candidate in direct contributions - which it had done. Hey John wanted him to give the money to the DCCC and the DSCC. (Kerry had given these organizations and the DNC money in late 2004 - before the time period that the "Hey John" smear used. They also praised HRC for giving $2 million of her excess money to the DSCC an DCCC.

This was fought all over the blogoshere and resulted in more people knowing the extent of what Kerry had done to buid the party in 2004 - 2006 than they did before. There were a few news stories in papers and on cable, but it was mostly in the blogosphere.

This campaign and the new one against Obama are Rovian attempts to hit a strength. Obama and Edwards both worked very hard in 2006 to elect Democrats. The Clintons did campaign at the end and Bill Clinton in particular does bring people out. The problem is that throughout 2006, they sent letters constantly that warned that she was the number 1 target of the Republicans for 2006 and that she needed our help (money) to defeat them. (She was so targeted that her opponent was a no name former Yonkers mayor, who no one heard of.) I saw posts here from all over the country, that she did not share money raised at big fund raisers in places like Oregon, which had many cash poor races. This was setting up to be a Clinton liability.

[MethuenProgressive]

3. Welcome to DU. HuffPo hates the Clintons? And that's "news"?

Huffy suffers from Clinton Derangement Syndrome.

[jefferson_dem]

4. So now it's the "vast left wing conspiracy," eh?

:spray:

[MethuenProgressive]

5. "Now"? You claim to be unaware of Huffy's decade long spat with the Clintons?.

Oh wait. There's an Obama logo in your post - still waiting for that HuffPo logo, eh?

[sniffa]

6. duplicitous should be her new moniker

does anyone doubt she's about herself, and not the Democratic Party?