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Local companies also stiffed by Clinton
The presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton not paying a number of small businesses, including those in Mahoning County, attracted national media attention this week.
Politico.com, a political Web site, published an article Monday that described a campaign with financial problems stiffing small businesses.
National television news networks picked up the Politico.com article. The article was also reprinted on dozens of political blogs.
The article made the Drudge Report, considered by political insiders as the brass ring of Web sites.
[On a personal note, Drudge reprinted a story I wrote two years ago on a congressional candidate. I received about 10 phone calls and e-mails from people about it, including one that read, in part, “you just got made.” It wasn’t until then that I realized the true significance of that site.]
The Politico.com article focused on two local companies, Forty Two Inc. of Youngstown and Show Tyme Exhibits Inc. of Poland.
The two companies handled events for the Clinton campaign held in and near the Mahoning Valley leading to last month’s Ohio Democratic presidential primary.
After reviewing Clinton’s campaign debt list, I found two other local companies and a Youngstown-based union owed money.
All totaled, the campaign owed more than $20,000 to the local companies and union.
When contacted, most of the companies were upset by what they described as a lack of response by the Clinton campaign to their requests to be paid.
One business owner said Clinton “spouts her belief about small businesses and she’s not paying her bills.”
The owner added that she was disappointed by this and “it’s a slap at small businesses.”
Forty Two, owed the most among the locals, was the most vocal.
That company issued a statement that complained about “the unprofessional behavior of the folks at the campaign office.”
The company’s statement said its staff called Clinton’s campaign office “many times per day, sent daily e-mails and even certified letters requesting a response. For weeks no response was made from the campaign.”
Forty Two and other local companies said they also did work for U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s Democratic presidential campaign, and were promptly paid in full.
Jim Phillips, the owner of Show Tyme Exhibits Inc. of Poland, complained that the Clinton campaign told his company it would get a check in the mail for the $607 it was owed.
As of Thursday, the check hadn’t arrived.
A Clinton campaign spokesman said Monday that checks for all the local companies and the union were being processed and would be in the mail shortly.
He questioned the reason behind the uproar because the campaign was taking care of the bills about a month after receiving invoices.
That’s not unusual for a political campaign, particularly a presidential one.
The timing of the check processing announcement from the campaign is certainly interesting.
National story
The Politico.com article ran Monday. That same day reporters all over the country were working on the story.
The Clinton campaign spokesman insisted the “check processing” had nothing to do with the articles.
It was the campaign’s typical schedule for processing checks to pay bills, the spokesman said.
Whether that’s the case is immaterial.
Maybe the companies overreacted because they were paid quicker by the Obama campaign and by other politicians in the past.
Again, that’s not terribly important.
The last thing Clinton’s campaign needs is media outlets all over the country writing or reprinting articles with accusations about her being a dead-beat, particularly when it comes to small businesses.