Sources Confirm $20 Million Clinton Campaign Debt

The buzz around the political blogs this Monday is the confirmation of the rumored size of the Hillary Clinton campaign debt at the "eye-popping" figure of twenty million dollars.

As blogger DHinMI points out at DailyKos:

This creates serious problems for Clinton. At a time when her only appeal left is to superdelegates, she's just shown that she's managed to lose the pledged delegate contest AND mismanaged her campaign. If she can't at least balance the books of her campaign while getting beaten by Obama, why would superdelegates view her as the more viable candidate for November?

Furthermore, to use gambling terminology, Clinton had doubled down...which is often a sign that the person has a gambling problem. It usually makes it harder for the gambler to walk away, because then they're gambling to get back their losses. For over a month Clinton's debt has been seen as a possible impediment to getting her out of the race. There have been rumors that the exit strategy could include offers from Obama of helping her retire her debt. As I explained Saturday:

No money donated to Obama, in the past or in the future, will end up with Hillary Clinton's campaign.

It is illegal for a campaign to accept more than $2,000 from another candidate's campaign fund for a primary. Any discussions about Obama helping out Clinton might lead to Obama appealing to some of his donors to contribute to Clinton after she drops out to help her with her debt, but it will not involve taking money donated to him and giving it to Hillary Clinton.