Bada Bing!

Townhall.com ^ | February 18, 2008 | Armstrong Williams

...The word on the street is that the Obama campaign and New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg have already met and devised an incredible plan if Clinton wins the nominee. Mayor Bloomberg would give nearly $1 billion to Obama's campaign after which Obama would bolt from the Democratic Party and run as an Independent candidate with king-maker Bloomberg as his running mate...

Ummm...Armstrong Williams is an idiot.

Second, how does one give a billion dollars to a campaign?

SFCraig wrote:Ummm...Armstrong Williams is an idiot.

Second, how does one give a billion dollars to a campaign?

100,000 Chinese dishwashers' $1,000 donations bundled by Hsu--like HIllary does?

Yeah.....I guess nobody would notice a sudden influx of A BILLION DOLLARS. Sheesh.

In an odd wrinkle in campaign finance, a candidate can loan his campaign any amount (see Hillary's $5,000,000 loan) and not require re-payment. I think Romney loaned his campaign something like $35 million. It never garnered that much in contributions and obviously never will...

Does that extend into 1 billion? Man...that would be ludicrous. 100 Million here, 100 million there, pretty soon you're talkin' about real money!

ohio county wrote:In an odd wrinkle in campaign finance, a candidate can loan his campaign any amount (see Hillary's $5,000,000 loan) and not require re-payment. I think Romney loaned his campaign something like $35 million. It never garnered that much in contributions and obviously never will...

If it's called a contribution from the candidiate to his/her own campaign, it cannot be re-paid. By calling it a "loan" one can hold fund-raisers forever to raise $$$$ to pay back that "loan". And winning candidates often do just that. Lobbyists and others seeking favors line up to attend those post-election fund-raiser parties.

But of course non-winning candidates usually find it difficult to raise additional funds to pay off campaign debts owed mostly to themselves.