04/04/08

To put it bluntly, this race for the 2008 Democratic nominee for president is over.

I know there are still 10 states left to vote. These states will cast their votes, and Sen. Hillary Clinton will still be on the ballot, but she is no more viable than Gov. Mike Huckabee was in the last weeks of his campaign for the nomination of the Republican Party.

Huckabee ran what almost any commentator and pundit will tell you was an amazing and gracious campaign. He was honest, and whether it was because he couldn’t get the donations or if it was because he wanted to run a fiscally conservative campaign that aligned with his political beliefs, he left the campaign with less than $200,000 in campaign debts.

I bring this up because it denotes a striking difference between the end of Huckabee’s campaign and what is now the end of Clinton’s campaign. Clinton has $8.73 million in campaign debts – considerably more.

A recent Politico report stated that Clinton has been failing to pay her political operatives, which they point out is normal in political campaigns as the staffers and aides are not just working for pay but also boosting their credentials, which are priceless in political circles.

However, she is also failing to pay “apolitical businesses and organizations, large and small, in the states through which this historically expensive Democratic primary campaign has raged,” causing her campaign to get a bad reputation when it comes to conducting business on the trail.

For all of these reasons, it is extremely understandable why Clinton must remain in this contest for president – she must pay off her debts by raising more money that she can use in the primary (to pay off her debts, not buy more ads or anything).

She must do this since most of the money she has been raising has been from donors who have already exceeded the limit on primary donations and are preemptively donating money to her general election fund.

This general election fund money is money that, if she fails to get the nomination, which she assuredly will, has to be returned to the donors. That is, she cannot use it to pay off her debts from the primary campaign.

While Clinton and her husband, the former president, have gained considerable wealth in their time since residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, if she were to have to pay off the remainder of her debt, she would have almost $14 million dollars invested in her failed campaign.

While I do understand that the rules allow her to continue to raise money after the nomination battle to pay off these debts, the ability of a candidate to raise that high of an amount after the primary within the same rules and guidelines set up by the Federal Elections Commission is extremely difficult, some might say a gargantuan task.

It does not help Clinton that Sen. Barack Obama has already begun to subtly accept and state the fact that he is the Democratic nominee in public speeches.

Last week, he told reporters in Pennsylvania that, “I think that she should be able to compete, and her supporters should be able to support her for as long as they are willing or able,” and that, “My attitude is that Sen. Clinton can run as long as she wants.”

Essentially, he’s implying in that statement that Clinton can campaign as long as she wants, but it’s all for naught, as the nomination is his, and he is now focused on the presumed Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain.

I agree with Obama that Clinton should be able to campaign as long as she wants.

She should be allowed to pay off her campaign debts with the help of her supporters – as many politicians do, and she should be allowed to give the voters a choice on the ballot in the remaining states and territories.

It is Democratic, and it allows for the ability of a further debate on policy issues and the ability of voters in the remaining states and territories to make up their minds and have their say.

All of this said, Clinton has a historic opportunity at her feet.

If she was to decide to play fair, to restrain her staff from making incendiary and inflammatory remarks, and she went on with the rest of her campaign with the class and dignity that Huckabee did, we could possibly be looking at the next Senate majority leader or the next governor of New York.

The ball is on her court, and she can either play along and become one of the most powerful people and an agent of change for America, or she can return limping to the Senate – the Senate which will continue to defect from her if she continues this shameless campaign, and ruin her political future in the Democratic Party.