Hillary Clinton’s top campaign aides insisted Thursday that her bid for the presidency has robust funding, but a long list of small debts have added up to a big questions about her ability to stay in the race and manage her finances.
Barack Obama’s campaign announced yesterday that he raised more than $40 million in March. Clinton’s campaignis expected to announce a much smaller figure, with ABC News and others reporting her total in the $20 million range, but top Clinton strategist Howard Wolfson said Thursday the campaign “will have the resources that we need to compete and be successful in the upcoming primary states.”
But Clinton has yet to pay a long list of debts, much of it small bills for a variety of vendors who have helped her stage campaign events. Clinton’s total debt in February was $8.7 million, according to her campaign finance report. She is much further in the red than Obama, who owed just $625,000, according to his February campaign filing.
Among the debts listed by the Clinton campaign was $292,000 owed in health insurance premiums, but much of the debt on her campaign finance report comes from a series of relatively small bills, still unpaid.
Take the $607.05 owed to Show Tyme Exhibits in Youngstown, Ohio. The company performed a minor job for the campaign — setting up media stands and the stage area for Clinton for a Feb. 13 rally she held at the General Motors plant there. But owner Jim Phillips said he has been unable to collect payment for the work after calling the campaign repeatedly over the past seven weeks. Phillips left voicemail messages but has never gotten a response.
“This has never happened to me before and I’ve been dealing with political campaigns since George McGovern’s,” Phillips said. “We’ve always been paid in a timely manner. Five to seven days, that’s the rule.”
Campaign debt is nothing new, and candidates regularly hold off paying vendors outside of media and mail advertising, said veteran political consultant Hank Sheinkopf, who worked on Bill Clinton’s 1996 bid for a second term.
“Campaigns are not the best payers, they are generally late,” Sheinkopf said.
But Sheinkopf conceded the long list of debts is hurtful to Clinton, especially as poll numbers indicate a tightening race in Pennsylvania, where many believe she must win decisively in order to remain in the race.
“There are those who will use it against her and say it is evidence she can’t manage her money,” Sheinkopf said. “If she can’t manage her money, how can she manage the White House?”
Phillips said the campaign reportedly cut him a check Monday, but he has yet to see it arrive in his mailbox.
To Phillips, the lag in payment prompts a more obvious question about a candidate:
“Aren’t they running out of money? If they had money they would pay their bills.”
