Hillary's Financial Woes

Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings has an excellent post on the current financial situations of the various campaigns, but Hillary’s is definitely worth checking out.

"I was somewhat puzzled by Clinton's statement, though. On one hand, her campaign clearly took in considerably less than it paid out. About nine million dollars less. And that can hardly be good news. Moreover, she has a mass of debt: $7,576,700.48 worth, to be precise (not including the loan she made to herself.) Moreover, while some of it is large sums (over $2 Million owed to Mark Penn, for instance), there are a lot of pretty small unpaid bills to places throughout Iowa and New Hampshire. (Honestly, why not pay the $500.12 they owe to Premier Pizza in Algonquin, Iowa? Or the $615.25 they owe Depot Deli of Shenandoah, Iowa? Your average pizzeria or deli is not made of money, after all."

Isn’t it strange that Hillary presents herself as the candidate for the middle class worker (Heck, her new slogan is that she is with the workers on the night shift) but she still owes small businesses from expenditures well over a month ago?! Nothing like saying you are for the middle class worker when you rack up a hefty bill and fail to pay it in a timely manner. I don’t think those deli and pizza shop owners are wealthy enough to give themselves a $5 Million dollar loan to cover their costs in the meantime.

She campaigns that the Bush economy is a trap door waiting to make businesses and middle class workers fall into bankruptcy. Well, apparently the Clinton campaign has the same effect because I doubt these businesses can write off those large bills at a whim.

This makes their earlier faux pas of failing to pay a waitress a tip look like nothing. Over $1,000 owed from 2007? Wow, and some people want this woman to return to the White House.

However, I shouldn’t be too upset at this revelation because it only means her campaign is having serious money problems. She spent more than she raised in January when she had relative success with New Hampshire, but her stock since then has declined rapidly. I doubt she is having an easy time raising money in February with Obama’s momentum. Look for her to call it quits soon after Ohio if she doesn’t win in a convincing fashion.