How soon is now?

Clinton campaign consultants looking for truffles and paychecks

I’d like to think that this is the reason that Hillary Clinton won’t accept the inevitable as opposed to staying in because of unchecked ego:

Hillary Clinton may have a financial incentive to remain in the presidential race for a while. And she has Senator John McCain to thank for it.

Clinton loaned her struggling campaign $11 million in recent months. A little-known provision of a 2002 campaign- finance law cosponsored by McCain prevents candidates who drop out of the race from raising money after the nominating conventions to repay themselves for personal loans.

Should Clinton fail to come up with the funds by the Democratic convention in August, she’ll be out the $11 million. If she quits the campaign before then, she may find it hard to get people to keep giving cash just so she can retire her debt.

That may ratchet up pressure on Clinton to cut a deal with rival Barack Obama to help her through his supporters. Obama may oblige since he would love to get her out of the race for the nomination so he could focus on the general election.

“Helping to pay off the debt would certainly be a clear signal of Obama’s desire to bring the two candidates together,” said Anthony Corrado, a professor of government at Colby College in Waterville, Maine.

Obama, 46, is keeping the door open to the possibility of helping pay her debt, which includes more than $10 million in unpaid bills to vendors and consultants — including strategist Mark Penn, who remains a flash point of criticism for backing a trade deal she opposed.

`On the Team’

In the interest of unifying the party, Obama will seek “a broad-ranging discussion with Senator Clinton about how I could make her feel good about the process and have her on the team,” he told reporters in Oregon on May 9.

Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said “there have been no discussions along those lines” and “no contemplation of it.”

Which is, of course, bullshit.

You can’t tell me that all of Hillary’s whores horses and all of Hillary’s men aren’t frantically searching about the room for the exits.. when they aren’t knocking each other out of the way in order to be the first to the bank to cash their checks before it bounces.

With the Clinton brand name Hillary Clinton still has the potential of making her money back by writing another book; maybe something forward-looking with a high-flown title like The Millennial Village: A Blueprint For the Future. That is, if she isn’t too bitter about the whole Presidential campaign experience, because I’m pretty sure that Barnes & Noble won’t set up a feature window display for a book titled : You Elitist Assholes Can All Go Fuck Yourselves: A Campaign Diary.