Obama shouldn't pay Hillary's debts

One of the ideas floating around since it became clear that Hillary won't make it is this very strange notion that, if she drops out now, Obama will help pay down her campaign debts.

Seriously?

Apparently this was the practice in the past - the winner helps out the loser. OK, I could see that, if the loser was, for example, a regular Senator who didn't have an extra source of income. And I could see this happening if it's a close race and the loser stayed in while they had a realistic chance. Money on a campaign is a weird thing, because everything is on a different schedule. The dominant item is the primary schedule. Then there's the fundraising schedule, and the bill payment schedule. None of those are really in sync. Deciding to run for office, particularly president, is a risky business. You have to order things like lawn signs and office furniture before you are absolutely sure you have the money to pay for them; that's the nature of the beast. It's basically a startup business. And your vendors take a certain risk selling you things, because you don't really have a revenue stream. But still, they're usually small business people, and many of them want to support your campaign. So you really need to pay them back.

So I can see a winning campaign in a primary helping out a loser. The winner wants the loser to be able to help them out during the general election, everybody wants the vendors to be happy, etc. My guess is that it's usually not a huge amount of money. And it probably happens behind the scenes. If most of the donors are big money people, they might have donated to both campaigns, and they're probably the kind of people who can write large checks and not worry if their money goes to another candidate.

Almost none of that applies this time. Yes, the winner, Obama, wants to maintain cordial relations with the loser, Hillary. But it is a huge amount of money. Many of Obama's donors are very sensitive about their donations NOT going to Hilary.

Hillary made several decisions that are relevant to this dilemma that she finds herself in. She made the decision to loan herself $5 million way back at the beginning of this primary season. She hired people who mismanaged her campaign finances. She stayed in it long after it became obvious that Obama would be the nominee. I have no sympathy whatsoever for her financial difficulties. I've been considering donating money to the campaign again, before the end of the primary season, and making an appeal to my friends and family to do the same. I won't do either if Obama helps out Clinton with her campaign debt. Let's be VERY clear on that one.