All this talk of Obama paying off Clinton's campaign debt had been really worrying me. His campaign's ability to raise small sums of money from millions of voters is unprecedented in a way that has the potential to transform our electoral process. People gave money to him because they believe in his campaign, and I suspect that a sizable percentage of them would be quite upset if their donation was used to help the Clintons repay loans they made to themselves. But Obama is a smart guy, so from the first time I heard Tim Russert suggest this idea, I had hoped that if it was to be done, it would be done very carefully.
So today I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I read this from Steve Benen:
Recognizing the obvious problems with this -- and aware that it could conceivably hurt Obama fundraising in the short term -- the Obama campaign was quick to point out yesterday that if they were to help Clinton with her financial difficulties, the support would not come from Obama's campaign account. As the NYT noted, "Instead, he would have to make a fund-raising appeal on her behalf, asking people to contribute."
In other words, people who contributed to Obama could feel confident that the money would not go to Clinton.
That makes perfect sense. As does this:
I'd just add that Time's Mark Halperin ran the "outline" of a possible deal between the two Democratic camps: "Clinton agrees to leave the race in return for help paying off her campaign debt, a key role at the convention, and a guarantee that she becomes the lead Senate sponsor of the health care reform bill under a President Obama."
All of those things are going to happen anyway, so there's no harm whatsoever in making the deal once the fundraising part has been cleared up.
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