Clinton Campaign's Ballooning Debt Makes These 3am Calls Likely

Good old JedReport brings us the video and story over on Daily Kos. He refers back to Politico, who were the ones to break it.

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s cash-strapped presidential campaign has been putting off paying hundreds of bills for months — freeing up cash for critical media buys but also earning the campaign a reputation as something of a deadbeat in some small-business circles.

A pair of Ohio companies owed more than $25,000 by Clinton for staging events for her campaign are warning others in the tight-knit event production community — and anyone else who will listen — to get their cash upfront when doing business with her. Her campaign, say representatives of the two companies, has stopped returning phone calls and e-mails seeking payment of outstanding invoices. One even got no response from a certified letter.

Their cautionary tales, combined with published reports about similar difficulties faced by a New Hampshire landlord, an Iowa office cleaner and a New York caterer, highlight a less-obvious impact of Clinton’s inability to keep up with the staggering fundraising pace set by her opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

It gets worse when you look at the cash on hand for both campaigns:

The rest can be spent only in the general election, if she makes it that far, and must be returned if she doesn’t. If she had paid off the $8.7 million in unpaid bills she reported as debt and had not loaned her campaign $5 million, she would have been nearly $3 million in the red at the end of February.

By contrast, if you subtract Obama’s $625,000 in debts and his general-election-only money from his total cash on hand at the end of last month, he’d still be left with $31 million.

Today, the Obama Campaign announced their March numbers:

Senator Barack Obama’s campaign announced today that more than 442,000 contributors across the country gave more than $40 million in March. More than 218,000 donors contributed to the campaign for the first time, and the average contribution level was $96.

There was no announcement from Clinton HQ today, which most in-the-know pundits say is bad news.

Based on what the Clinton campaign leaked to Time, that Clinton didn't hit $20 million, and adding in the $13 million raised by McCain, Obama raised more money in March than both his Democratic and Republican rivals combined.

That leads us to the second thing about fundraising we've learned today: the Clinton campaign is financially screwed; from Ben Smith at The Politico:

Clinton aide Howard Wolfson suggested that Hillary's tax returns will be out today or tomorrow:

"She said late last week that they would be out within a week and so you can count on that," he said.

Wolfson also said Clinton's fundraising totals would be out when the filings are due, around April 20.

People have started asking whether Clinton is going broke. Obama is outspending her 5-1 on TV. Now, for probably the first time in the campaign, the Clinton campaign is refusing to divulge their finances until they're required by law.

The question may be moot about Clinton making it "all the way" to the Convention. If Obama keeps outspending her 5-to-1, that will seriously erode any advantage she has in ANY state.