A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.

21 May 2016

Bernie burns big bucks, is almost out of cash

Primary campaigns often end when candidates finally accept the message voters are sending — but they always end when the money, the mother’s milk of politics, runs out.

Bernie Sanders’ campaign is almost broke. He’s been spending $1.3 million a day and is down to five or six million in cash, according to overnight reports. Hillary Clinton has five times as much. Now Sanders is laying off hundreds of campaign workers, and probably loosing fusillades of emails frantically begging for bucks. Without a rapid and large infusion of cash, his campaign will be in the red before the California primary is held.

But donations to his campaign are down because the odds he can win the nomination are fading. Reports of undisciplined spending won’t help. Donors expect their candidates to spend wisely. When millions get blown on television ads, which means the political consultants producing and placing those ads are taking obscenely large commissions, donors close their checkbooks.

Sanders has an excellent online fundraising operation. It’s efficient, it’s effective. But his top advisors are old school political consultants like Tad Devine who are expensive and get paid whether or not their candidate wins. And apparently he had nobody smart and strong enough to persuade him to cut expenses sooner.

Eight years, Clinton’s campaign was the proverbial drunken sailor on an epic binge. She loaned herself millions. Sanders won’t be able to fund himself that way. If he doesn’t stop burning greenbacks, and rebuild his pile of cash, his campaign will toast to a halt by June.