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Financial reports filed Sunday offered a window into the challenges facing the presidential campaigns as Clinton and Obama continue to slug it out for the Democratic nomination and Republican McCain awaits off stage.
Obama began April with $42 million in the bank for the primary to Clinton's $9.3 million.
But Clinton had debts of $10.3 million at the start of the month, much of it money owed to her main polling, phone-banking and advertising consultants. The largest single debt was to the firm of her demoted former chief strategist, Mark Penn.
She also owed $1.17 million to the Spoken Hub, a phone-bank operation, and $528,000 to ad-maker Mandy Grunwald's firm.
But many of those owed money were not political insiders.
Still, several other firms contacted said they did not consider the campaign delinquent on payments and were confident they would be paid.
"We will, of course, be honoring the debts in the coming weeks and months, and that goes for whatever our debts are and to whomever they are to," Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson said yesterday.
For now, Clinton's red ink is less of an obstacle than her inability to keep up with Obama's prodigious fund-raising. Obama raised $41 million in March, twice as much as Clinton. His nearly 5-1 edge in cash on hand gave him a rich base from which to challenge Clinton in Pennsylvania.
For McCain, the presumed Republican nominee, the financial demands were not as urgent.
He raised $15 million in March and had $11.6 million in the bank at the start of April. It was his best fund-raising performance of the campaign, but he still lagged the two Democrats.
The March reports marked the end of the first quarter of 2008 and illustrated how fund-raising has spiked dramatically compared with the four quarters of 2007. Obama has raised $132 million so far this year, surpassing his total for all of 2007. Clinton raised $68.5 in the first quarter of this year; her average quarterly fund-raising in 2007 was $27 million. McCain has raised $38 million so far this year, also exceeding his 2007 total.
Obama's fund-raising in March led all candidates. His report showed he spent $9 million on media advertising in March; Clinton spent less than a third of that. Obama spent nearly $5 million on telemarketing and $3.6 million for travel and lodging. Clinton spent about $5 million on travel and about $2 million on phone banks.
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