Hillary in a Pickle

She's helping Obama raise money and at the same time trying to pay off $25 million in debt. Maybe this is why she can't cut her PUMAs loose: 

Mantz is still Clinton's national finance director, a once-illustrious job that now carries the responsibility for a grab bag of thankless chores. He must help retire $25 million in campaign debt, and is piecing together a schedule of fundraising events -- no picnic in the best of times -- for a candidate who has lost but who needs new donors because so many of her earlier contributors gave the legal limit.

And he is in charge of persuading cranky Clinton donors, many of them still bitter about the way she lost, to open their checkbooks for Sen. Barack Obama, while he endures the doubts of Obama supporters suspicious of how much Clinton is doing for herself rather than for the presumptive Democratic nominee.
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Top Clinton supporters have formed new alliances to help the Obama campaign: The group Lawyers for Hillary, which raised $2 million for Clinton during the primaries and advised her campaign on legal issues, has recast itself as the Obama Lawyers Unity Fund, with nearly 75 members helping Obama raise money. (The group is working with, but distinct from, the Lawyers for Obama committee, which has been part of the Obama organization from the start).

On Wednesday night, two prominent Clinton supporters in Florida held a fundraiser for Obama featuring his wife, Michelle, that raised between $500,000 and $600,0000, aides said.

All together, Mantz said, Clinton has raised an unspecified but large amount -- "I would think it's several million already, and millions to go," he said -- and his counterpart, Obama finance director Julianna Smoot, agreed.

"She's been great," Smoot said in an interview, listing the joint events in which Clinton has participated.

An analysis by The Washington Post found that more than 2,200 Clinton donors became first-time Obama donors in June, giving him $1.8 million of the $52 million he raised last month. Of those, 355 contributed at least $2,000, for a total of $1 million. That leaves a long way to go for Clinton and her contributors to be considered a prime source of cash, but it represents what Obama advisers believe is the beginning of a real rapprochement.

Though a few election cycles have passed since former rivals had to help each other in this way, there are historical examples of the kind of partnership Clinton and Obama are trying to develop: Former president Jimmy Carter and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy helped each other retire debt after the 1980 presidential race, as did Sens. Gary Hart and Walter F. Mondale after the 1984 contest.

This year, the level of cooperation between the two campaigns' donors has varied, in part based on geography. In such places as New England, Georgia and Florida, top fundraisers for Clinton and Obama had relationships that predated the campaign, and they reported finding it relatively easy to unite after the primary race.

The Florida event with Michelle Obama on Wednesday night was an example of comity: held at the South Beach home of Abigail and F.J. Pollack -- who were once top-dollar bundlers for Clinton, with Abigail Pollack estimated to have raised more than $1 million for Clinton during the primaries -- the party pulled in more than Clinton herself did during her stops in New York earlier in the month.