Money Maven.
Hillary proved once again that she is the biggest fundraiser among congressional Democrats, pulling in $718,000 in the first half of the year for HILLPAC, her leadership political action committee. This money doesn’t even include the wads of cash she makes for Democrat candidates for speaking at their events. Her haul is more than $230,000 higher than any other Democrat raised for a leadership PAC. Hillary then gave nearly one-sixth, or $120,000, from HILLPAC to Democratic candidates and committees-more than all but two Democrats. The director of HILLPAC, Patti Solis Doyle, said that "the senator is committed to raising money for Democrats, and this is one way she does it, through the PAC." Hillary’s first donation of the new election cycle was $15,000 in late January, and went to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. It was also the maximum that a PAC can give a party committee per year. Sen. Clinton has also given the maximum contribution to the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and sent a $5,000 check to Minority Leader Tom Daschle’s re-election campaign.
Changing Campaign Finance Laws.
Ironically, Sen. Clinton’s fundraising prowess has given many Republicans an incentive to support presidential campaign finance reform measures. Fueled by speculation that the Hillary could make her own run for the White House in 2008, a growing GOP contingency believes that Republicans must act to reform the presidential funding system now, according to The Hill, so they don’t end up with an impossible fight on their hands, It’s one thing for President Bush to run unopposed for his party’s nomination and to draw upon his huge, nationwide financial base for $300 million in campaign contributions, but even well-heeled, high-profile Republican politicians such as Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist would be hard-pressed to keep up financially with someone of Sen. Clinton’s star quality. Another GOP operative said that although "It’s usually conventional wisdom that Republicans can outraise the Democrats. I don’t think that’s necessarily the case in 2008," because many fear that Hillary could easily raise $100 million to $200 million for a presidential bid without working up a sweat.
Energy Bunny.
She just keeps attacking, and attacking, and attacking. Hillary wasted no time in going on the national airwaves only a few hours after the Northeastern power grid went down to blame President Bush for the blackout that shut off power in eight states for 50 million Americans. She told CNN’s Larry King over the phone that the Bush administration’s energy policies pushing deregulation and coddling power companies like Enron resulted in one-fifth of the country’s being left in the dark. "I happen to think that making sure we have a reliable, affordable system of energy is a national priority-and I don’t think that this administration sees it that way," said Hill. "They have continued to try to push deregulation and privatization, and to try to undo a lot of the systems in changes that many of us thought were important and necessary that we tried to work on during the Clinton Administration under [former Energy] Secretary [Bill] Richardson’s leadership."
Sen. Clinton also accused the White House of throwing "a lot of roadblocks in the way of [Calif. Gov. Gray] Davis, when he tried to clean up some of the problems that he had with the manipulation of the energy markets by Enron and others. . . . So, no, I don’t think the federal administration under this President is really focused on making sure we don’t have these problems in the future." Rep. Peter King (R.), a genuine representative of New York, said later that Hillary’s attack on President Bush was "absolutely disgraceful" and irresponsible enough to cause a riot in blacked-out New York City. "There could have been some incident last night, and then you attach that to what she’s saying and you get out of control and, before you know it, you have cops fighting for their lives in this city??? We didn’t know what was going to happen, and all you need is someone who’s supposedly a national leader, trying to sow the seeds of division-and you have the police out there trying to keep order in the streets-and you have an elected official basically trying to divide the country." Frankly, Hillary may have contributed to the blackout herself, having sided with those Senate Democrats in preventing the passage of the President’s energy bill, and championing environmentalist efforts like fighting acid rain and closing the Indian Point nuclear plant.
