Gestures matter. It's about the gesture.
Obama needs to raise a lot of money. He's tapped all of his donors and would like to tap into Clinton's.
Obama was asked to send one email to his wide network of donors, and make a request that each supporter consider donating to Hillary Clinton to help retire her debt. It's tradition. It's a gesture of respect. It's also best done immediately after she endorses him, when the excitement is still high. She was a worthy adversary and created a lot of excitement around the Democrats this year.
The Obama campaign sent no such email. They reasoned, they told reporters, they could not afford to. They could send an email with her picture in it, or mention that she endorsed him. But ask people to retire her debt? Too risky.
You see, because the Obama campaign raised so much money, they could not afford to make a request of donors to retire Hillary's debt for fear said donors would take them up on it.
The Obama campaign, having raised so much money, decided they could not afford to opt into the same public financing system that John McCain did. The same system Obama had promised to opt into. The same system that was designed to keep fatcat donors from holding too much influence over presidential politics. The same imperfect, yet pretty effective (in Russ Feingold's words) system that was designed to level the playing field, to ensure that no one vote weighed more than another. But said system would LIMIT the Obama campaign to spending only what the McCain campaign was limited to spending.
The Obama campaign could not afford spending limits. It could not afford gestures.
The Obama campaign, having just decided to opt out of public financing because they believed they could raise a LOT MORE money in a privatized General Election fundraising system just could not afford to divert any attention, any potential funds, to retire Hillary's debt.
This is no secret. Obama's donors are being quite vocal about this:
Mark Gilbert, a financier and Obama supporter who has been raising money in Florida and Utah, agreed that the request to help Clinton has been a challenge."What's a good way to put this? There's a feeling that the money she spent at the end may not have needed to have been spent," he said. "You want to help because it's important to Senator Obama. The flip side is, you don't want to take money away from what's needed in November, which is the more important goal."
Uh, Mr. Gilbert? Gestures matter. Gestures matter to potential donors like Richard Shiffrin:
Clinton supporters who have joined Obama's effort said his work to help retire Clinton's debt is an important olive branch and will more than offset any burden it places on Obama's fundraising team.Richard L. Shiffrin, a Philadelphia lawyer who backed Clinton but has now committed to helping Obama, said he has been closely monitoring the debt-retirement effort.
"They have made a bunch of promises, which I have no reason to believe they won't fulfill, but you want to see results," he said.
The gesture Clinton's supporters are looking for will more than offset any burden it places on Obama's fundraising team.
You want money, Obama campaign? Hillary's donors would like to see some gestures. SINCERE, heartfelt gestures.
Be a grownup and stop whining about party unity, Mark Gilbert. And Barack Obama - forgetting to mention Hillary's debt at that fundraiser was cutting it close. Her donors were watching you - do you have the capacity to make a sincere gesture on her behalf? Obama? You cannot afford not to.
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