Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

Cash Rolling in for Clinton updated

via ABC

February is turning out to be one hell of a month for Hillary Clinton, and
it’s only begun. I’ve just learned that in the last 24-30 hours, Clinton has
raised 6.4 million dollars, with 7.5 million online in February; and 40,000 new contributors so far and still counting. (To add, here’s the audio of McAuliffe.) Oh, and about
that rumor of Clinton staff going unpaid. Baloney.

“All staff 100% paid. Not an issue.” – Terry McAuliffe

ABC
News is the only one who picked it up so far.

So it turns out the Clinton campaign may not be so cash-strapped after all — at least not at this very moment. After offering on Wednesday to go without paychecks to help save precious campaign resources, senior staff members on Hillary Clinton’s campaign are in fact not going without pay during the month of February, ABC News has learned. “It’s not happening,” said a source familiar with the situation. … ..

One thing to note, the Clinton campaign staff offered to work without pay.
But it never happened. Loyalty, baby.

On a finance call today, there was one spirit. Grateful thanks coming from
the Clinton campaign for what their grass roots supports are doing. The most amazing story on California is entitled “Clinton’s California Dream Team.” Hillary’s people were never fooled by Zogby or the Kennedy – Oprah propaganda.

“Everyone told us this race had tightened,” he said. “But those of us who led this effort on the ground knew better. We had faith. We had faith in the work that we had done.” – Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa

Boston’s Mayor Thomas M. Menino knows how he feels.

But the current outpouring of fundraising has clearly blown away the big time professional pols. “It’s surprised me, the ultimate optimist,” said McAuliffe (audio). On the call, continual thanks and praise went out to the “grass roots,” many of
whom were on the call. From Oklahoma to Texas to New Mexico, people deeply involved
with the Clinton campaign spoke out. One note: Texas is on fire for Clinton. The word of the call was “thank you,”
but the message about money was, keep it comin’. McAuliffe also hinted at new big
donors signing on. We’ll see. The other real part of it was that they’re getting emails
from Clinton supporters basically saying, “I didn’t know you
needed money, I thought you had all the money you need.”

Clinton’s willingness to put down her own cash has impressed many supporters.
It’s inspired them too.

Clinton will be doing commercials next week across the upcoming primary states.
Former Senator Bob Kerrey will do commercials for Nebraska.

“We are going
up immediately in Washington state, Maine and Nebraska,” said McAuliffe.
Ohio and Texas will be next.

In Mark
Ambinder’s earlier post he asks one question: how did the biggest fundraising
machine in history with the reportedly most brilliant campaign ever end up in
this situation?

Simple. The Clinton campaign never made the small donor ask. Now they are.
And Clinton’s supporters, including thousands and thousands of new supporters,
are donating with no end in sight.

UPDATE: Obama has refused to debate. Got this much earlier this morning. Thought I’d add it in this campaign related post. It’s a public letter to Obama from Clinton’s campaign.

David Plouffe, Campaign Manager Obama for America P.O. Box 8102 Chicago, IL 60680 Dear David: Congratulations again on your victories Tuesday night. As Senator Obama declared, it was a great evening for Democrats. One of the things I’ve always appreciated about the Democratic Party is its willingness to engage the toughest issues facing our country, even if we don’t always agree on how best to solve them. After seven years of a Bush administration that has left the economy struggling and our health care system in crisis, Americans are certainly facing their fair share of challenges and deserve to hear how the candidates for the nomination will address them. As such, I was disappointed to see that Senator Obama rejected the idea of having more debates given the fact that he and Senators Clinton have had only a single one-on-one debate. I think we can do better and so does Hillary. Senator Clinton believes voters should have more than one opportunity to see the candidates discuss the issues and has accepted five debates between now and March 4th from CNN, MSNBC, WJLA, ABC and Fox News. To that end, we hope Senator Obama will join Senator Clinton for a debate a week beginning this weekend. I’m sure we can find a suitable place to meet on the campaign trail. There’s too much at stake and the issues facing the country are too grave to deny voters the opportunity to see the candidates up close. As Senator Obama has said, “In an era when Americans are rightfully skeptical about the quality of our politics, let us set an example [they] can be proud of and give them the kind of campaign they deserve.” We couldn’t agree more. Sincerely, Patti Solis Doyle Campaign Manager

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