I just came across this article so apologize if it had been posted before. If you read the headlines today about how Bernie bernt through $46 million in March but raised a similar amount, you might think that his famous small donor funding machine is handling the load. But this article makes the case pretty clearly that his big spending but low return-on-investment ways are starting to catch up.
First the giant adulatory rockstar rallies he is so famous for:
A huge rally can cost the candidate a million in campaign donations. For what? He has a photo-op of him in front of a lot of people. What does Hillary have? Photo-ops of her sitting with some guys and winning at Dominos; eating an ice cream concoction named after her; etc. Total cost for Hillary maybe $10,000.
Results, of a photo of Bernie waving his arms in front of crowds of mostly young white men. Same old same old. How many photos have you seen of Bernie in a coffee shop talking to actual people? He doesn’t do that. He has no personal touch. He’d be waving his arms around knocking the customers out.
Bernie rally photo-op shared 10,000 times. Hillary staring at that cheesecake shared millions of times. Millions of dollars in viral publicity
This is on top on the tons of television advertising and that famous Vatican trip which will probably end up being disallowed as a campaign expense by the FEC so will need to be paid out of his own pocket. Furthermore,
In three separate notices, the FEC informed Bernie that he has about $28 million in illegal funds (over limit and foreign donations) to be returned, as well as that mysterious $10 million donation.
His campaign debt I estimate at $20 plus million.
As we know, candidates who finish second in the primaries look for two plums to bow out gracefully. One is the V.P. slot which he has shown little interest in. The other is getting the nominee to help pay down the campaign debt. And that is where he and Hillary can strike a bargain if he interested. As the author of this piece concludes:
Sanders is in financial trouble. He knows it and Hillary knows it. He’d better start playing nice.
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