ORIGINAL ITEM: When it comes to money and politics, looks can be deceiving. Take February’s presidential fundraising receipts, for example. After losing 11 straight primary contests to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton rebounded–in the headlines, at least–with the Feb. 29 announcement that she had racked up $34.5 million in contributions for the month, her all-time record. The only problem? Candidates aren’t actually required to disclose full fundraising information until the 20th of the following month. Fortunately for Clinton, not many folks took notice when she finally filed with the FEC on March 20. If they had, they would’ve discovered that only a third of Clinton’s February cash-on-hand, $11.7 million, was designated for the primary campaign; the remaining $20-plus million was all general election funds, and would only be available if she won the Democratic nomination. What’s more, they would’ve also learned that Clinton’s campaign had closed the month with $8.7 million in outstanding debt–leaving her at the start of March with a measly $3 million in free dough for the battles ahead.
I bring this up because we’ve suddenly reached the end of another month (and the start of another money-maniacal news cycle)–and only by looking back at February can we see how bleak March looks for Clinton. As usual, her financial fate doesn’t seem particularly dire on its face. According to the Politico’s Ben Smith, a Clinton campaign source says the candidate raised about $20 million for the month–her second-best finish to date, which isn’t shabby for period largely lacking in competitive primaries. But if February’s tally revealed anything, it’s that Clinton has been unable to expand her donor base far enough beyond the traditional networks of wealthy Democrats; the $23 million gap between primary and general election funds proved that many of these contributors had long given the $2,300 maximum donation for the primary, and were now providing an additional $2,300 for the general only to inflate Clinton’s monthly total and spur positive coverage. Assuming the pattern holds, it’s unlikely that Clinton raised more than $7 million that she can actually use against Obama–less, you’ll notice, than last month’s debt, which is probably still outstanding. (And that’s not even counting the $5 million Clinton loaned her campaign at the end of January.) In any case, we won’t know for sure until–you guessed it–April 20. On a conference call this morning, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson refused to confirm the $20 million figure and reminded reporters that the campaign would not release its numbers until required by law. “We will have the resources that we need to compete,” said Wolfson. Not exactly a confidence booster.
The larger context here is the fate of Clinton’s bid. As the pundits love to say, only two things could convince the tenacious candidate to drop out: Bill or an empty bank vault. Could the formerly inevitable Clinton actually run out of cash? At this point, it’s clear, at least, that she has no chance of catching Obama in the money chase. In February, the Illinois senator racked up a record-setting $55.5 million in receipts–$54 million of which he can drop on the primary. The reason? An ever-expanding list of modest online donors; when you have 1,276,000 contributors giving an average of $100 each, there’s no danger of bleeding them dry. Indeed, Obama started March with a primary fund ($31.6 million) three times the size of Clinton’s, then ended the month with an additional 216,000 new donors and another $40 million in the bank; last week, he outspent Clinton five-to-one on TV advertising in upcoming primary states.
Where does Clinton stand? The most that she could’ve possibly had to spend last month was about $31 million–$11.7 in February’s primary funds plus the $20 million raised in March. But that’s assuming ALL of March’s money was available for the primary, which, as I explained above, is highly improbable. Even so, if Clinton spent at anything like February’s rate–$1 million a day–she’d be living hand-to-mouth. The likelier scenario, of course, is that Clinton had less available for the primary (maybe $20 million?) and burned through it more slowly. Still, it’s hard to imagine that she’s doing much better than breaking even–and her debts probably put her in the red. Understandably, she’s spent the last two days at fundraisers in Menlo Park, San Francisco and Beverly Hills, California.
Going forward, this matters. It’s not that money determines electoral outcomes. Obama massively outspent Clinton in Texas and Ohio and still lost the primaries; Clinton will likely win Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia and Puerto Rico despite the dinero differential. But pecuniary perceptions are important. “If Clinton is perceived to be in financial peril, she becomes a much less attractive investment for donors deciding where to give their money,” writes Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post. “By the same token, if Obama looks like the nominee, he is sure to vacuum up the campaign cash of fence sitters looking for a winner.” As the clock ticks down, Clinton will have fewer chances to gain delegates and votes, and Obama will appear more and more inevitable. Wins in Indiana and North Carolina on May 6–hardly a sure thing, but possible–would only accelerate that process. All of which is to say that if Obama “looks like the nominee” at some point before the convention, Clinton’s financial intake may flatline. In that case, she probably won’t have the rainy-day money necessary to keep fighting (unless it’s more of her own). Meaning that it won’t matter what Bill has to say. The bank vault will have already spoken.