a dog-eared town

So the news is Hillary loaned her campaign money to help make up for the shortfall in her January fund raising.

Hillary Rodham Clinton personally lent her cash-strapped campaign $5 million late last month

In and of itself, no big deal. Heck, if the Mittster wasn’t so wealthy, he’d have dropped out a long time ago. But the real problem for Hillary is the other measures she’s taking.

Officials confirmed that some staffers have “voluntarily chosen to work without pay this month,” including campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle - a move that echoes one by Rudy Giuliani’s campaign last month when it hit the skids.

And that’s the problem. If her top campaign people are working for free, then it really signals that she has a lot of problems raising money. I know that Obama doubled her in money raised but if she’s really that strapped in raising money, it does not bode well for the rest of the primary season.

And thank goodness for the Billmeister. Adding his two cents where it’s not needed.

At a stop in Iowa in December, Bill Clinton raised the issue of funding his wife’s campaign. He told a crowd, “They say you couldn’t stop me from spending all the money I’ve saved over the last five years if I wanted to, even though it would clearly violate the spirit of campaign-finance reform.”

But yesterday Hillary Clinton made clear what the source of the $5 million was.

“From my money - that’s where I got the money,” she quipped.

Ah yes, nothing like the former president essentially saying he’ll violate campaign finance laws to get his wife elected. Of course she stepped right up and tried to squash that. Yes indeed, Bill Clinton IS so helping his wife out.