A major issue has sprung up surrounding Hillary Clinton’s tax returns and where the money lent to her campaign fund has come from. We don’t yet know what these documents will reveal but ahead of Clinton’s release ABC News has put out an estimate placing the Clinton’s worth at $50 Million gained from Bill giving various speeches since leaving office.
An independent review by ABC News has found that since leaving the White House seven years ago, the senator and her former president husband have made well over $50 million, much of it from paid speeches made by Bill Clinton.
A review of Sen. Clinton’s annual ethics filings found that her husband has earned $47 million in fees from more than 280 speeches he has made around the world.
Who is paying the major bucks for those speeches?
Clinton’s biggest patrons include New York-based investment firm Goldman Sachs, which paid him $650,000 for four speeches in recent years, and two foreign firms. Gold Services International, a Colombian-based event organizer, brought Clinton to Latin America in 2005 for four days of speeches, earning Clinton $800,000. Another company, Toronto-based Power Within, paid Clinton $650,000 for a series of motivational speeches in Canada in 2005.
One time Clinton advisor turned hater Dick Morris has a unique take on why Senator Clinton will not be leaving the Democratic race before the convention.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign currently owes vendors $8 million, exclusive of the $5 million she owes herself. She cannot use general election money to pay for this debt. If she begins to be anything less than certain that she will stay in up to the convention, she won’t raise any money and will be stuck with the debt. She also realizes that it is only by projecting an almost manic air of certainty that she has any chance at all of hanging onto super delegates. The first whiff they get of a withdrawal, they will all run screaming to Obama to get on the late train. Don’t think that Hillary is delusional. She knows she’s lost but she has no choice but to play the rest of the game. To fold now would leave her in an untenable situation.
Morris has always been, how should I put this, a less than reliable source of information and commentary so take it with a grain of salt. With that said, facing a growing and almost certain defeat it is as good of a reason as any why Clinton continues to fight.
The Obama Campaign announced $40 million raised with 1.3 Million donors strong during the month of March. Rumors are that Clinton has raised $20 million during the same time.
Former President Jimmy Carter is hinting he will support Barack Obama while actress and anti-Vietnam activist Jane Fonda told TMZ (video she will support the Illinois Senator.
Speaking to the media following the Carter Center Awards in Abuja, Nigeria Carter said:
“We are very interested in the primaries,” Carter said. “Don’t forget that Obama won in my state of Georgia. My town which is home to 625 people is for Obama, my children and their spouses are pro- Obama. My grandchildren are also pro- Obama. As a superdelegate, I would not disclose who I am rooting for, but I leave you to make that guess,” he said.
Ironically enough, not long ago Senator Clinton made a major issue out of Senator Obama’s failure to credit an aide for words he used in a speech. Clinton also made a major issue out of Senator Obama’s recognition that former President Ronald Reagan had some good ideas. Now Clinton, who used one of Ronald Reagan’s favorite and often repeated jokes, is being chided by the former president’s biographer for failing to cite Reagan as the source for her material.
It reminds me of the story about that little boy, have you ever heard this story where you know, a man walks by the barn and sees this little boy in this room filled with manure,” she reiterates. “And he’s standing there and he’s digging, and he’s digging, and he’s digging. And the man says, ‘Son, what are you doing up to your hips in manure with that little shovel?’ The boys says, ‘Well, with this much manure around there’s got to be a pony — and I’m going to find it.’”
Ironically, the story Clinton recounted was made famous by former Republican President Ronald Reagan. And just a few months ago Clinton criticized her opponent, Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois), for saying Reagan “changed the trajectory of America in a way that … Bill Clinton did not.”
Reagan biographer Paul Kengor sarcastically states that he “did not know Clinton was such a Reagan fan.”
“Reagan told this story, constantly told this joke, constantly,” says Kengor. “In fact, any time that I did research on Reagan and the economy from 1981 to ‘83, no matter who I was talking to — Ed Meese, Bill Clark, you name it, whichever Reagan staffer — they would say, ‘You know what Reagan said, he would always tell this story at the time about the boy and the pile of manure.’ So for Hillary not to credit Ronald Reagan is itself a bunch of manure.”
According to Kengor, Clinton’s use of the story was the first time he has heard a public figure use the story since Ronald Reagan used it to bolster his optimism that tax cuts would spur economic growth in the midst of a recession. Interestingly, Kengor points out, Clinton applied the story to her mantra “there’s not a problem we can’t solve.”
Exact same as Clinton’s only McCain takes on the economy. A sign not only of a great line of attack for the Republicans but also a great message within the message, basically “I don’t have to talk about defense, everyone knows I am better at it then you.”
ABC News has learned from sources close to negotiations between Gov. Bill Richardson and the Clintons, that the couple has been making direct appeals to superdelegates stating that Barack Obama cannot win a general election campaign.
Sources with direct knowledge of the conversation between Sen. Clinton and Governer Bill Richardson, D-N.M., prior to the Governor’s endorsement of Obama say she told him flatly, “He cannot win, Bill. He cannot win.”
Richardson, who served in President Clinton’s cabinet, disagreed.
At a rally in Oregon, standing next to Obama, Richardson insisted, “My great affection and admiration for Hillary Clinton and President Bill Clinton will never waver,” but he added, “It is time, however, for Democrats to stop fighting among ourselves and to prepare for the tough fight we will face against John McCain in the fall.”
Politico reports on a series of new polls showing a sudden surge for Senator Obama in Pennsylvania. Yesterday I reported the latest Ramsussen showing a once mighty 10 point lead for Clinton diminishing to five. Today a new poll by Public Policy Polling shows Obama leading Clinton for the first time 45 percent to 43 percent. Obama was down 26% in polling by the same institute just two and a half weeks ago.
bama’s gains are largely due to a narrowing of the gap with white voters—29-percentage points according to PPP—but he continues to trail Clinton 49 to 38 percent among whites. In mid-March, according to PPP, Clinton led 63 percent to 23 percent among whites. That mid-March poll occurred prior to Obama’s race speech, at the height of the controversy over Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
The PPP poll of 1224 likely Democratic primary voters between March 31 and April 1, with a margin of error of 2.8 percent, found that Obama has improved by double digits with both white women and white men. Today, PPP has Clinton leading 56 percent to 31 percent with white women. Obama leads 44 percent to 43 percent with white men.
Obama also improved with black voters, long his base. He now captures the support of three in four African Americans in the state.
It seems like every year, big election years especially, the Congress puts on a dog and pony show over oil prices. Everyone in Congress wants to make it seem as though they are doing something to resolve the issue, so with oil leaders sitting before them, we hear talk of “record revenue”, limiting supply and threats of recrimination. Then, nothing happens.
Every year oil prices go up in the spring/summer. They rise and rise, articles written from the year before are republished with only the numbers and lineup of world crises changed and news reports fill the television with speculation prices will reach a never before imagined level. Then, every fall, the prices go down only to spike again around holiday times before slowly moderating. This cycle does little but repeat.
So we all know the game, oil barrens make record profits while everyone pays more at the pump. Congress talks big but does little to nothing to help Americans. It is a display in futility and a massive waste of time and energy that could be better spent solving problems.
I honestly see both sides of the argument. I don’t know that we should put limits on the amount of money industries make, I don’t know that such a nationally vital resource should be manipulated in the way it is. I do know one thing, if Congress isn’t going to act by forcing any new kind of regulation or helping the American public out, they should stop the dog and pony show.
We live in a serious time with serious problems facing us and yet it seems increasingly obvious our elected leaders have little fortitude or fervor to get things done.
Howard Dean says the Democratic Party is committed to seating Florida delegates as long as both candidates agree to the conditions.
Dean met with Florida lawmakers to discuss ways of allocating delegates among Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton and prepare for the fall campaign in the battleground state.
The party stripped Florida and Michigan of their delegates to the national convention in Denver because they ignored party rules and moved their primaries to January.
“We are committed to making sure that we do everything in our power to seat a delegation from Florida,” Dean said. “We believe we will seat a delegation from Florida.”
But the party chairman said it was critical that Obama and Clinton were “comfortable with the compromises that have to be worked out.” The two campaigns did not have representatives at the hourlong meeting.
“It’s our hope that the candidates will join us in this effort and without them an agreement is not possible,” said Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla.
Dean said discussions were continuing over Michigan and he was “optimistic” that the state’s delegates would also be seated.
