Updated LOS ANGELES — Our colleague Patrick Healy tells us that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, facing big primaries against her rival Senator Barack Obama in places like Ohio and Texas, is weighing whether to lend her campaign money.

And in a quick update, her campaign has just confirmed that she’d already lent her coffers $5 million of her own money in late January. A just-issued statement from her camp:

The loan illustrates Senator Clinton’s commitment to this effort and to ensuring that our campaign has the resources it needs to compete and win across this nation. We have had one of our best fundraising efforts ever on the Web today and our Super Tuesday victories will only help in bringing more support for her candidacy.

More Updates: At her news conference this afternoon, Senator Clinton acknowledged the loan, saying: “I loaned the campaign $5 million from my money. That’s where I got the money. I did it because I believe very strongly in this campaign, and we had a great month fund-raising in January, broke all our records, but my opponent was able to raise more money and we intended to be competitive – and we were – and I think the results last night proved the wisdom of my investment.”

Her advisers says she’s considering another loan because money is tight now — the mega-primaries yesterday were quite the financial drain. And although she won many states yesterday, including some very big states like New York and California, the victories weren’t resoundingly decisive enough — especially when you look at the extremely tight delegate matchup right now — to inspire a lot of new giving, Pat says.

Plus, many of her donors had already maxed out for the primary season and more of her money than that raised by the Obama campaign was pledged to the general cycle and can’t be used right now. Mr. Obama’s campaign boasted a haul in January of $32 million with a lot of new, smaller donors.



On the other hand, news that she’s willing to lend her campaign money may wring some money out of supporters who’ve been watching from the sidelines. Perhaps that’s a cynical view.

Amazing, no? The $100 million election register just keeps on ringing. (Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic.com blogged earlier that he could envision a scenario where the Clinton campaign issues an appeal to help match Hillary’s donation. Ha, clever.) And of course, we’re envisioning yet more messages from former President Bill Clinton and Chelsea. Help my mom, please.