Opinion: B. Clinton, M. Obama, S. Palin, M. Romney seek last-minute money

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(UPDATE: See below)

In case you’ve got some spare change after filling Barack Obama’scampaign coffers with way more than $605 million this political season.

And chipping in another $10 last week like he asked. And a final $5 this week that he asked for. And another really final $5 that Michelle requested.

In case you’ve still got some checks left, Sarah Palin could use $5 million by Sunday night. And Bill Clinton is requesting only $189,000, which is less than two speeches for him. But he’d still like you to give it.

Just because you may be among the millions who’ve already voted doesn’t mean you won’t be asked to pay more before Tuesday. And, who knows, maybe after Tuesday to cover somebody’s debts.

‘Every dollar,’ says the nation’s best-known hockey mom in an e-mail, ‘will help fund our final get-out-the-vote efforts.’ She notes the polls are tightening and raises the spectre of Democrats ‘spreading the wealth around.’

And all we all know what that means (TAXES!)

Now, ex-president Clinton raises the spectre of Republicans ‘pulling out all the stops.’ He’s afraid of an insufficiently Democratic Congress for President Obama. He wants large, veto-proof majorities in both houses.

And, oh, darn, we just noticed he set a deadline of 3 p.m. today. So we missed that.

But, wait! Just now we got another e-mail, this one from former Gov. Mitt Romney, who says at this moment he’s in an airplane ‘somewhere over Nevada en route to New Mexico.’

He says we can make a real difference fighting ‘the liberal turnout machine’ by going to his PAC website, FreeStrongAmerica.com, checking the list of endorsed candidates and, if we can -- you guessed it -- make a last-minute donation.

Aren’t we about out of last-minutes by now?

(UPDATE: Apparently not.

(Early Saturday morning we got yet another e-mail money plea, this one from Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, saying that he sensed some last-minute opportunities -- the campaign is starting a TV ad in McCain’s homestate of Arizona Saturday.

(If we just gave $5 more, he threatened to put us in a lottery where the winner has to go to Chicago on election night to attend the Grant Park rally. Ah, Chicago’s lakefront on a November night. Everybody’s vacation dream.)

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credits: Chicago Tribune (M. Obama); Getty Images (S. Palin)