You may wonder what costs campaigns so much. Sure, there are the planes, and hotel bills, and advertising (that last one can burn a million a day by itself) - but also the money you don't think about. Each local office pays rent, electricity, phone/cell phone, and then they need printers, printer cartridges, and paper. Remember all that canvassing? To know where to go, and which doors to knock requires reams of paper with lists and maps. Same with the call centers. Lists of names and phone numbers.
Those campaign offices, and the volunteers they launch, need basic things that the campaign does not pay for, and relies on the locals for: bottles of water, toilet paper, office supplies, snacks, etc.
There are incredible numbers of "paid" campaign workers. They need to be housed and fed. I have a "campaign kid" living in my house. A nice young man who took the year off from college to work the campaign. He gets up every day around 8, goes to the office, and doesn't get home most days until midnight. He, and thousands like him make calls, line up volunteers, register voters, coordinate unpaid workers, coordinate with the locals, set up events, and everything else that needs to be accomplished on a micro basis for the campaign.
Have no money? Maybe you have one hour a week. Just one hour to help save the world. You give someone like me 4 hours over the course of a month, and you WILL bring back a voter, and (you know this is coming) elections are won one voter at a time.
What does that mean? Many people are low-information voters. If you stand at a voter registration drive, or knock on doors, or make calls, there is always that person who honestly doesn't know the facts, and legitimately wants to. That person who has never really cared about an election before, but cares this year, and doesn't know where to go to get legitimate information. They may be too shy to walk into the local office, they may lack good investigative computer skills (they may not even have a computer). They may not even know how to register to vote until you offer to help them.
I never go anywhere without voter registration forms, I don't just run voter drives, I AM a voter drive. When you walk into a restaurant to get something to eat, check with your order taker, or your waiter/waitress -- sign them up. Likewise, the people at the gas stations, convenience stores, dry cleaners, shops and every other place you go every day. All you need to do is stop by your local campaign office and ask for 10 forms. They'll show you how to fill them out, and then all you need to do is drop the filled-out forms back at the office.
When I was in Texas last week, I brought 10 forms, and signed up 5 voters - 4 when I stopped for directions at a construction site (my directions were really, really bad, and this was FAR out in the country) and a waitress one night at dinner. Five Obama votes Texas might not have had otherwise. And yes, it even matters in a red state.
So get out there -- give that other $5. Give that hour. This is YOUR campaign and YOUR country. And this is how we win.
If Hillary becomes Secretary of State, what happens to her campaign debt? She still owes about $7.6 million, and there is that little thing called the Hatch Act. That piece of legislation precludes her from soliciting any monies to pay off the campaign debt. If her campaign committee stays active, IT can raise funds, but history doesn't indicate that scenario would result in much success.
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