That's the real headline of this story. It doesn't matter that Bernie Sanders' fundraising for the most recently completed quarter roughly equaled the Empress's. It doesn't matter that it's Bernie Sanders. It could have been anybody. As I always say in political campaigns, you don't look at snapshots, you look at trends, and the trend of Mrs. Clinton's fundraising is closely following that of her poll numbers - straight down:
As Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders inch closer together in the polls, so it seems do their fundraising numbers.
[Mrs.] Clinton raised roughly $28 million in the second quarter of her presidential campaign, a [Rodham] campaign official familiar with Federal Election Commission filings said. This figure, while strong, is just slightly ahead of her Democrat opponent, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who raised about $26 million during the same period, which ended Wednesday.
Sanders’ fundraising efforts were aided by a last-minute texting and email push, campaign spokesperson Michael Briggs said after the fundraising deadline had passed.
Ponder those numbers for a moment, and then put them in the context of Hillary having vacuumed up almost twice as much ($47.6 million) in the previous quarter, versus $13.6 million for Weekend Bernie. His fundraising is skyrocketing in the opposite direction, not because of any unique, noteworthy dynamism or charisma or electability on his part, but solely because he isn't Hillary Clinton, and the Democrat base wants to escape the Hillary Trap with every fiber of its collective being. There's no way for La Clinton Nostra to spin away a 40% plunge in fundraising from the woman that boasted of raising a $2.5 billion campaign warchest. Even Sick Willie himself would have a difficult time pulling off that whopper.
Plus, she's blowing through her cash like there's no tomorrow just to slow down her freefall descent, while Senator Sanders's campaign is spending at roughly half her rate. Talk about "bang for the buck," and what kind of manager Mrs. Clinton is, quite apart from what Emailgate continues to reveal.
Dick Morris, of course, has seen it all before:
Hillary is doing the same old traditional Rolodex fundraising to get her money, phoning donors who max out, going to fifty-eight fundraisers this quarter, and soliciting money hand over fist. The problem now, as in 2008, is that when the going gets tough and she needs financial reinforcements, her donors will be maxed out and unable to give more.
Meanwhile, Sanders is raising his money through the internet. He has gotten $1.3 million donations from 650,000 different people, putting him the same class with Obama's 2008 campaign. Back then, while Hillary sweated over her rolodex raising money with her best people maxed out, Obama had to only push the send button on his computer to re-solicit money from his small donors, none of whom were maxed out. Sanders' money will come in more and more easily as his internet base gives and gives again.
Why is Mrs. Clinton not learning from past mistakes? Because she does not acknowledge that she ever made any. Before one can learn from the past, the better not to repeat it, one must first acknowledge it. This Hillary Clinton is incapable of doing. Just as eight years ago, she thought the Democrat nomination would be handed to her, giftwrapped and unopposed. It didn't happen then (Barack Obama) and it is once again not happening now (Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, whomever). It really doesn't matter who her submariner is; the common thread is that Democrats do not want Hillary Clinton to be their presidential nominee, even if it means all but conceding White House in 2016.
The one thing everybody could count on with the Ugly Dutchess is that, lacking every other campaign asset imaginable - likability, integrity, skilled mendacity, electability - she would always be rolling in dough. If even that is going up in proverbial smoke, what, really, does she have left?
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