To add to Mark Ambinder's list of the seven reasons why Hillary Clinton might consider remaining in the race -- I'd like to propose an eighth. Perhaps she can actually make money the rest of the way out? By having a schedule heavy on fundraising, cutting back advertising to a bare minimum, and letting her staff dwindle by attrition -- there surely are plenty of exhausted folks on Team Clinton -- it's conceivable that Clinton could use the pretense of a campaign in the remaining primaries in order to help to pay off any campaign debt that her team has accumulated.
To some extent, the Clinton campaign may already have hedged its bets in the remaining states. They have 17 field offices open in the six remaining primary states: seven in Oregon, five in Kentucky, four in West Virginia, one in Montana, and none in South Dakota or Puerto Rico. Obama, by contrast, has 44 field offices open: 17 in Oregon, 10 in West Virginia, seven in each of Kentucky and Montana, three in South Dakota, and none in Puerto Rico.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
The Eighth Reason
-- Nate Silver at 3:21 PM
Labels: clinton, fundraising
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When a campaign comes to an early end, what do they do with the money they've raised, anyway?
And if they are in debt at the end, who pays that debt off?
Why has neither campaign opened an office in Puerto Rico, when it has the most voters of any race remaining?
But doesn't the "standing campaign" (headquarters etc.) cost more per day than she's likely to fundraise at this point?
How much *do* the various components of the campaign cost? TV ads actually seem to work out as no more than a fraction of what these guys are spending.
Benjamin,
Great question. Puerto Rico would seem like a place where the ground game is very important.
Given how well your model has performed over the last 3 contests, it would be great to see you game out the rest of the primaries.
There are no offices in Puerto Rico because everyone knows Clinton will win, and because they don't have any electoral votes, so there's no need to build an organization there.
Actually, Puerto Rico seems to me to be Hillary's sole remaining hope. If she can somehow get an 700,000 or 800,000 net vote win out of PR, she could still win the popular vote.
Granted, the Supers would probably consider it bogus (PR can't even vote in the fall), but it seems to make more sense than trying to eke another 10,000 votes here and there in Kentucky and WVa. What the hell, put $$$ in, throw a Hail Mary (Hail Hillary?) in PR and see what happens.
Clinton is out of money and in debt for the primary, but she has a ton of cash put away for the general election. What happens to that money if she doesn't win the primary? Can she use it to pay off her primary debts or does she have to return it to the donors? Or does she get to keep it to run for congress again?
Just a couple of corrections on PR.
First, the Obama campaign opened an office almost a month ago. Here's the link: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/proffices
I have been to the office, and it seems well staffed. They have about 5 or 6 staffers from the main campaign, and about 5 or 6 local operatives recruited from both major parties in the island (Remember, the two big parties here and the Pro-Commonwealth party, which the Governor, a pro-Obama super presided, and the Pro-Statehood party, whose candidate for PR delegate in Congress has endorse BO).
They have also been active, with a radio ad already on the air. I have encountered a couple of BO staffers distributing flyers and information on activities held by the Pro-Commonwealth party, which I am a member of.
Hillary activities have mostly been held by the local politicians who support her, and there close there are no ground operations that I know of.
Although I expect Clinton to win, I would not be to worried about the popular vote margin. There are over 2 million registered voters on the island, but I wouldn't bet for a turnout of over 500K. For a couple of reasons, first the primary is on a sunday, a beautiful summer sunday in the carribbean, and the first weeked after public schools are out. Second, there is a major movement to boycott the primaries, as they are seem by some, including me (sometimes), as a cham because we cannot vote for the President in the fall. Third, half of the pro-statehood party is affiliated with the GOP.
So even if she win 60-40, which she wont, the popular margin will not make a big dent on the overall numbers.
I can tell you definitively Obama has more than 7 offices open in MT. Obama has more field offices open in MT than Tester did.
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