People are obviously dumping money into
Hillary!'s Senate re-election campaign in anticipation of
her! run for President. It simply does not take that much money to beat A-Republican-To-Be-Named-Later in New York State.
Hillary! is going to finish her re-election campaign with hundreds of millions of dollars left over.
So, here is the question...
If Hillary! does not run for President, what happens to the money? Is there any mechanism by which a person retiring from the Senate can keep the money?
How about if the person loses? Can a loser walk away from an election with the left over money from a campaign?
If there is a way to steal the money, you can count on a Clinton to do it. It would really funny to see all the Donks turning their pockets inside out supporting Hillary!, only to have the Clintons take the money and run.
I'm no expert. I do not think she's gonna raise hundreds of millions, but several million. Before campaign finance reform, politicians had a great deal of latitude in disposing of unused campaign funds. I don't know if anything has changed.
One of the reasons Ted Kennedy is so "powerful" is because his name has an iconic effect on the checkbooks of a certain class of reflexively Democratic contributers. He can raise money for other Democrats who kiss his big fat ring and has lots of money in his war chest to sprinkle on those pleasing in his sight. Running in the rotten borough of Massachusetts (I think the proper term is actually "pocket borough") he doesn't need to spend money on reelection when he has the Boston Globe and local broadcast media acting as auxiliaries to his campaign.