‘Clintons raised $1 billion for politics in two decades’

WASHINGTON: Bill and Hillary Clinton helped raise more than one billion dollars for politics in the past two decades, a major potential advantage for the former secretary of state as she weighs a 2016 White House bid, the Wall Street Journal reported late on Tuesday.
The formidable political pair brought in these funds through “campaigns, paid speeches and a network of organizations advancing their political and policy goals,” the Journal found.
And “those deep ties potentially give Mrs. Clinton a financial advantage in the 2016 presidential election, if she runs, and could bring industry donors back to the Democratic Party for the first time since Mr. Clinton left the White House.”
While Republicans can raise funds at similar levels, they fret that Clinton, her Democratic Party’s likeliest standard bearer as of now, will get a lucrative early lead “in the next presidential race, which is expected to total well above the $2 billion spent in 2012,” the report added.
“Clinton Inc. is going to be the most formidable fundraising operation for the Democrats in the history of the country. Period. Exclamation point,” Rick Hohlt, a lobbyist and fundraiser for Republican Party presidential candidates, told the Journal. “It sure causes concern.”
As a whole, the Clintons raised $2-3 billion from all sources which also includes individuals, corporate contributors and foreign governments, the Journal reported. Between $1.3 billion-$2 billion was from industry sources, it said. (Agencies)