Former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack never had a snowball’s chance in heck of getting the Democratic nomination. As Dan Akroyd used to say while imitating Bob Dole in those Saturday Night Live sketches, “You know it, I know it, and the American people know it.”

But he jumped in, and he jumped in first – a way to get attention, even if you’re the longest of longshots. A little bit of the blame for this ridiculously-early campaign can be laid at his feet, for officially announcing his campaign on November 30 of last year. A February poll put the guy at nine percent in his home state. Keep in mind he was governor until January 12.

Somehow during a campaign that lasted all of 85 days, Vilsack signed on for not one but two private sector jobs. The first was his selection as a professor of law at Drake University on January 29.

The second was a two-year contract to “do research and provide input” to MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company. Vilsack “couldn’t recall” his salary for the forty hours of work per quarter at MidAmerican, and the company said it did not disclose compensation for consultants.

Candidates usually leave private sector work and other commitments when starting a campaign; Vilsack seemed to be seeking out other major commitments of time and energy.

A lot of retired public officials teach, but Vilsack is the only candidate in recent memory who signed on as a consultant for an energy company during his campaign. It’s tough to call it a clear-cut conflict of interest – particularly since we now know Vilsack will not be elected to federal office anytime soon – but it seems odd that right after declaring his interest in public office, Vilsack as eager to sign on for private sector work as well.

Was the whole point of the presidential campaign to boost his name recognition, so that he could get a better asking price in his private sector work? After all, when he was named at Drake, the announcement described him not just as a former governor but “current Democratic presidential candidate Tom Vilsack.”

While Vilsack was signing on private sector work, his campaign was issuing statements about confidence in his fundraising that, as Stuart Rothenberg notes, were almost certainly lies.

I have reason to believe that at least some people at the Vilsack campaign were aware that it was having significant financial problems as early as late January, about the time the Vilsack news release went out boasting of the candidate’s fundraising and guaranteeing that the campaign would have the money to compete in Iowa. My guess (well, it’s more than a guess) is that the Jan. 29 release was part of a “Hail Mary” strategy — that included an appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” on Feb. 15 and the release on Feb. 9 of the names of 1,100 “Iowans who have publicly agreed to caucus for Vilsack” — to get the former Iowa governor some attention and to help him boost his fundraising in an effort to stave off what was starting to look like the death throes of his campaign. If that’s what happened, then I’d argue that the Vilsack campaign crossed the line by asserting that fundraising was going well and that the candidate had the resources for the long haul. I’m certainly not suggesting that the campaign should have or was obligated to put out a release saying that it was in financial trouble, or that it couldn’t put out a very narrowly written release noting its fundraising totals and comparing them with candidate fundraising in the previous cycle. But the Jan. 29 release went far beyond that. It was boastful about Vilsack’s fundraising success, and it asserted that the campaign would have the resources to compete in Iowa and beyond. Because of that, it was misleading.

(To top it all off, Vilsack has been saying that for as long as he lives, he will believe that he would have won the Iowa Caucuses if he had stayed in the race. Then why quit?) Meanwhile, Vilsack’s successor as governor, Chet Culver, is being mistaken for him, suggesting that neither has a terribly high name or facial recognition among Iowans.

Why am I whacking Vilsack around like a piñata? Because Hillary is going to ask her supporters to help Vilsack pay back his $400,000 in campaign debts. The Hillary camp is insisting that it does not constitute a quid pro quo for his endorsement.

Right.

UPDATE: A reader notes, “If a NYSE CEO went on Jay Leno and said, everything in our company is great, only to declare bankruptcy a month later…there’d be charges filed.”