Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Hillary " Tonya Harding" Clinton's Campaign - 20 Million Dollars in Debt

Hat tip: justice58 at Jack and Jill Politics:

From the Los Angeles Times:


Money shocker! Hillary Clinton's campaign debt soars to $31 million


No wonder Sen. Hillary Clinton was so late filing her required campaign financial reports Tuesday night. Her political team didn't want the shocking news in it to overshadow her lopsided thumping of Sen. Barack Obama in Kentucky.

But here's the morning after, pay-up time. Clinton's campaign debt has now soared to nearly $31 million, according to numbers crunched early this morning by The Times' campaign finance guru, Dan Morain.

She added another $9.5 million in unpaid bills to vendors this past month alone, pushing her total debt to vendors and herself to the new astronomical figure, about a 50% debt increase in one month.

According to a campaign release put out Tuesday evening as election returns revealed her big win in Kentucky and loss in Oregon, Clinton raised "approximately $22 million" from other people in April. The release also touted that $10 million had poured in within 48 hours of another lopsided Clinton victory over Obama, that one in Pennsylvania, and said it was the second best fundraising month of her entire campaign.

But the number collected is actually closer to $21 million and the release also neglected to mention that she spent $28.9 million, nearly $8 million more than she took in. She used personal loans to make up part of the difference. She also delayed payments to consultants. Including the $9.5 million in unpaid bills from April, she owes consultants and other vendors $19.5 million.

Not to mention the total $11.4 million she has loaned herself.


Rest of article at link above.

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UPDATE: Someone posted that a correction had been made, so I adjusted this post too.

From the LA Times: (*UPDATE: Due to a mathematical error, Hillary Clinton's loans to herself were added twice in the calculation of this item. Her total debts are about $20 million, not $31 million. A corrected item will be published shortly.)


Obama, on the other hand, has 36 Million cash-on-hand and pretty much no debt. So, he has a 55 million dollar advantage in the fundraising arena.

I keep on referring back to that piece on the HuffingtonPost.com that I just randomly clicked on after Pennsylvania. The premise of it was that Barack Obama had competed as hard as he had in Pennsylvania, not because he thought he could win; but because he was trying to bankrupt the Clinton campaign, due to the fact that there wouldn't be enough time in the rest of the calendar for her to get her financial bearings back.

I didn't believe the writer when I first read it. I do now.

1 comment:

Brian said...

It begs the question... is she trying to run up her debt, knowing that the Democratic Party will help her pay for it?
Whatever the Party ends up paying, is less money that could go to help Obama.

Perhaps that's my cynicism rearing its ugly head again... but there seems to be a pattern of spiteful behavior emerging with this woman. That's on top of the fact that she can't be trusted....