Will Clinton Need to Loan Her Campaign More Money?
Presidential campaigns costs a lot of money. The length of the campaign doesn't matter. The brief presidential bid by former Ohio Senator John Glenn in 1984 cost millions of dollars. The Federal Election Commission finally closed the books on that bid 22 years later, in 2006. And the campaign still owed creditors two and a half million dollars.
NPR's Peter Overby reports that Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign is only now paying off some of her campaign debts from Iowa. Clinton was supposed to be the fund raising juggernaut of the campaign. She's doing well, but she still had to lend her campaign $5 million of her own money in January to help keep it afloat. Meanwhile her main rival, Sen. Barack Obama, has been setting fund raising records.
During a conference call this afternoon, senior Clinton advisers said Obama had outspent them 4-1 so far in Pennsylvania and would probably outspend them 2-1 the next three weeks. They point out that Obama outspend her in Ohio and Texas, and Clinton still won the primaries there (although it increasingly looks like Obama will win the most delegates in Texas).
The Clinton campaign has not aired ads in either Indiana or North Carolina yet.
But recent polls have shown that Obama is closing the once large gap in Pennsylvania. Clinton may need to spend more on advertising if things get closer. That's why Randall Adkins, a political scientist at the University of Nebraska in Omaha expects that Clinton will make another loan that will enable her to "go all out" in Pennsylvania.
"This is perfect timing for her to be able to win Pennsylvania and to keep on campaigning," said Adkins. "If she were having to compete on April 22nd in five other states, I think she would be very hard pressed to continue to campaign."
The Clinton campaign was carrying eight and a half million dollars in debt at the end of February, far more than Obama and even Sen. John McCain
6:18 PM ET | 04- 2-2008 | permalink
