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: The Once and Future Lawyer

If the Clinton campaign was a public corporation, there would be multiple shareholder derivative suits

I have to confess that I was offended by Clinton's most recent remarks, which admittedly, have been blown out of context. I have no reason to be offended by them, but they were just stupid. I accept that it may have been a misstatement, and I also accept that similar statements were (largely) ignored by the press when put in a press article earlier in March. But I don't know what the question was for the March article, and this election is far from where it was in March.

Rather than belabor the point, I will ignore my common sense and assume that politicians routinely speak out of both sides of their mouths and this is just one of those times. I will also ignore the fact that lawyers are bred to choose their words wisely. I will simply say that if I was asked a question about why I'm sticking around this late in the primary process, I don't think I would say something to the effect of "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June" coupled with "We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California." To me, it's an odd pair of statements to give in response to a question that simply asked to respond about calls to drop out of the race.

To get to the main point that prompted this rather simple entry, would you still hire Hillary Clinton as president? I think the answer at this point is a resounding no. It has nothing to do with sexism or racism or ageism or whatever -ism these candidates feel like throwing on the public this week. I think examining it from an economic standpoint makes the most sense.

Clinton asked as a couple of weeks ago to "think about this as a hiring decision." Well, here's what she's brought to the table.

A year ago, despite Senator Obama was outraising her, Clinton still had a massive $30 million+ in her war chest. By the end of 2007, she had $100 million to spend on her campaign. 100 million. That's a lot of zeroes.

In May, Clinton has spent all that money and more. Her debt, through some magic of backdating, approximates $20.88 million, which includes personal loans to herself. (Still not sure how you can loan yourself money, but she has figured out a way to do so within the bounds of the tax code). So in less than six months, she has spent more than $100 million?

What does she have to show for it? She's about to lose the primary election. Senator Obama has defeated the once-invincible Clinton machine (ignoring any Lewinsky jokes for the time being). Pride has a cost and it's price tag is $100 million. Now, obviously the numbers aren't so clear-cut, but if this was a publicly-traded company reporting such losses, the stock would tank and shareholders would be pissed.

Granted, many people live their lives spending more than they actually make. It's part of the reason behind this mortgage crisis. Even our country is run regularly in the red. But if you can't handle your own personal finances or hire someone to market or manage them for you, how can you present yourself as someone who can provide economic guidance and structure for the nation? Thank goodness she's not running to work at Goldman Sachs, or for whatever hedge fund that Chelsea works for.

I wonder what Carl Ichan would actually do in real life if Clinton was chairman of the board of the Clinton Corporation. Regardless, I'm more inclined to believe Warren Buffet when he says that our economy will weather whichever candidate emerges as the victor, but that he supports Obama. For now, that's who I remain convinced will be the only candidate who can defeat McCain.

I do have some preliminary thoughts if the race comes down to McCain v. Obama. My January prediction that an Obama-Clinton ticket is unlikely still remains true. I agree with Annie's comments that "If they do run together, I think it will be less of a successful ticket because they obviously hate each other." I also believe that at this point, having her on the ticket would inherently run counter to his campaign for change. We'll see what happens next. At the very least, you can't say the Clintons haven't kept this interesting with an apparently bottomless wallet.

Full post as published by The Once and Future Lawyer on May 26, 2008 (boomark / email).