Hillary Clinton's 'joint' fundraising with state Democrats is comically lopsided
The Hillary Victory Fund is a "joint fundraising committee" that distributes its earnings to the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and state-level Democratic Party organizations. Right before Clinton announced the committee's creation in September — which was somewhat unusual timing given that she is not officially the nominee — she promised to "rebuild our party from the ground up," because "when our state parties are strong, we win. That's what will happen."
Nine months later, it's less than clear how the Victory Fund fits into that goal. Less than 1 percent ($0.5 million) of the committee's $61 million earnings has ended up in state party coffers, while $23.3 million "has gone towards expenses that appear to have directly benefited Clinton's campaign," a Politico analysis reveals.
The Bernie Sanders campaign, whose allies have suggested Clinton's committee is a sign of DNC favoritism, was given the same opportunity for joint fundraising last year. Sanders signed such an agreement with party leadership in November, but his committee has been mostly inactive.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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