Clinton’s maxed-out donors can’t help pay her campaign debt. Obama’s can.
The NYT finally solves a puzzle for me by explaining the basis of fundraising collaboration between the Clinton camp and the Obama camp. Clinton has more than enough money in the bank to pay her campaign debt (more than half of which is to herself). But she can’t use it for that purpose, because it’s general-election money from donors who maxed out their primary-season contributions. As I understand it, she can either give the money back or roll it over into her Senate-campaign warchest.
So if Obama mobilizes some of his maxed-out donors (he’s already got $10 million in “general election” money, which means those donors are over the primary-season limit) to help out Clinton, and she mobilizes some of hers to help Obama and the DNC, everybody’s happy.
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
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