Opinion: Huge holiday hit! Hillary Clinton takes $13.1-million campaign loss

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Always good to get your Christmas bills out of the way before the holiday. Sen. Hillary Clinton, in preparation for her upcoming Senate confirmation hearings to become secretary of State for President-elect Barack Obama, is clearing up some lingering financial affairs left over from the hard-fought primary campaign against her new boss, and the new vice president-elect, and the new secretary of Commerce-designate.

She’s just reported to the Federal Election Commission writing off the $13.1 million in campaign loans she gave herself so she could survive and continue to bash the Obama money machine last spring.

Clinton has said previously she would not recover that money. So the move is not unexpected. (It’s also much smaller than the personal $40-million hit Republican Mitt Romney took for his losing primary effort.)

The about-to-be-former New York senator reported whittling down her remaining campaign debt to others another $1.1 million since November, to $6.3 million total left.

Of that, fully $5.3 million is owed to Mark Penn, her fired campaign strategist who came up with the losing strategy and may not get that money in his Christmas stocking.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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