UPDATE: Clinton Campaign Has $20 Million Of Debt, LA Times Makes Correction

UPDATE 11:13 pm EST: The LA Times mistakenly reported Clinton's campaign was in $31 million of debt. Below is the correction and the real debt number of $20 million:

(*UPDATE: Due to a mathematical error, Hillary Clinton's loans to herself were added twice in the calculation of this item. Her total debts are about $20 million, not $31 million. A corrected item covering the first five paragraphs of this one has been published here.)

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EARLIER ITEM FROM THIS MORNING:
The LA Times is reporting that Hillary Clinton is nearly $31 million in debt. The news comes off a release from her campaign Tuesday night that she has raised $22 million:

No wonder Sen. Hillary Clinton was so late filing her required campaign financial reports Tuesday night. Her political team didn't want the shocking news in it to overshadow her lopsided thumping of Sen. Barack Obama in Kentucky.

Now comes the morning after, pay-up time. Clinton's campaign debt has now soared to nearly $31 million, according to numbers crunched early this morning by The Times' campaign finance guru, Dan Morain.

Comments

[Mrwilliams2u]

Clinton is fastly becoming a liability to the party, I hope she will not expect obama to help her pay off her debt letting herself go 31 million in the red is just negligent and poor managing. this contest has been over a long time ago why is she spending her self broke just to stay relevent, and the tax payers and the democratic supporters will have to fit her bill, Miss HRC please stop making yourself an liability>

[TN60]

For many months I have been just plain tired and sick of this woman. For as many months I have been more than irratated with DNC and the Supers. We have known for months that the numbers do not add up for HIllary, yet the DNC and Supers continue to go along with her and her myths about numbers and popular vote and her MI/FLA so called supporters. Instead of acting to protect the clear candidate of choice, Obama, they let her continue with her tales of sexism, racism, press bias and white blue collar workers nonsense. She continues to run in red states where Democrats have as much chance of winning as I have of becoming president. She chooses to go into a state and play on all that is sickening to the rest of us, white voters who will not vote for a black man.

What is sickening is the people of this country fall for her lies of being for the little people while she and Bill made over a hundred million dollars in seven years and all the while calling Obama an elitist when he has lived the truly "hard working" life and her ass has been on the public dole for over 25 years, first in Arkansas, then in the white house and now in the senate with secret service these many years.

Hillary, get off my stage !! You are pathetic!

[IkeChicago]

Listen to the pundits, Hillary is a fighter, she's tough, she should stay in till the end.

Hey how about Hillary is a deadbeat, she stiffs her vendors, she's going to ask Obama contributers to pay for her fantasy ride.

If you or I did this, we would be deadbeats. Hillary does this and she is tough, excuse me.

[Mogamboguru]

Just like Eight Belles was...

[JadedAggie]

That's messed up.

[Scarllatti]

If Barack Obama ever use my widows' mite I contributed to him to secure our future to settle HRC's debt, I will become A ONE MAN RIOT!! He dare not try it. HRC should gladly drown in her debts. She is such a fraud. What about that "$10 million" she claimed she got in one day from internet donations? SHE IS AN INCURABLE LIAR.

[in4success]

yeah -- the media's been soooo unfair to her.

[dollphingurl]

my question is, how is she able to do this? i mean, shouldn't there be a requirement that candidates not run up more than a certain amount of debt?

i know several million dollars of that is owed to mark penn and his business partners who are still official fixtures of the campaign.

but besides that, shouldn't there be some kind of permission given before she runs up these kinds of debts, considering that it will fall upon us to pay them for her?

maybe she thinks the gas tax holiday will suffice.

for some people, the end justifies the means. she apparently thinks it's all right to screw up as much as she is, rationalizing that it will all be worth it once she's the nominee and is able to mother us all.

DAMN sexist account balances!

[OverIt]

Is this how she was planning to run our economy??? What a crock!

[coolkraft]

ha ha....

[faretheewell]

If an approx $150 mil campaign is in debt for $31 mil, what could she do with a multi-trillion dollar national budget. She could make lil Georgie look fiscally responsible.

[MouthFountain]

She couldn't do worse than Shrub. Dear goodness, how can anybody be more inept. I suppose by following him about like a lapdog! Ooops! Wrong strategy McShrub...

[in4success]

because the same special interests have supported her campaign as did the bush presidency

[grinreaper]

yea right
come nov thats gona be preselect MCshrub

[borderorder]

I guess it's like some of those people that go to Vegas and leave their kids in the car while they gamble away the milk money. Once you got the fever you just can't let go.

[Relax08]

This is really really sick. She is up there acting like she's going to win- when she can't- and suggests that this contest is real when it appears only ongoing to be for her to go further into debt which she will then expect her unsuspecting supporters to pay their hard earned dollars to get these already rich people more money!

[AmbroseChapel]

I really wonder if all of the people in Kentucky really believe that she is going to win.

[borderorder]

The exit polls that I saw indicated a MAJORITY of those that voted for her believed she would not be even the nominee. They knew she can't win, they just filed a protest vote.

[JadedAggie]

I think the exit polls said that 42% believed she will win the nomination.

[k6007]

The same number that said they would vote for McSame over Barack, said they would vote for McSame over Hillary.

[Meteor]

Hillary is on a power shopping spree...on credit!

[lecraftygirl]

yeah too bad she didnt qualify for Bush's Rebate check!

[AmbroseChapel]

This was a horribly run campaign. It doesn't matter if you support HRC or Obama one has to acknowledge the utter incompetence. How in the world could someone or her for that matter argue that she would be a better candidate to run against McCain? If we are to judge her on her primary campaigning then she gets a failing grade. You can't be in debt and expect people to support the notion that you can fix our country's financial problems. You can't be behind in delegates and expect us to believe that you can win more electoral votes in a general. If you have asked people to examine this primary season as a sort of "interview" for the job of president and fail the interview then you should expect to be denied the position.

[Scarllatti]

It is the MSM that are trumpeting HRC's inevitability. Thank God for Huffpost, folks like you and I can share our thoughts and opinions on issues. They can talk all they want but we will vote for our candidate that will secure the future for my kids and yours. I hardly ever watch cable news. It is filled with dumb heads who just parrot any phrase thrown at them without checking the facts. If you doubt me, coin a phrase today and hand it over to Pat Buchanan and Tucker Carlson.

Well said.

If I were to interview HRC for a job, she will not last seconds with me.

[Daly]

Fact: This is the most expensive failed champagin imagineable.

Fact: Look at the people she selected to run the show; overpaid and selected because of loyality not talent.

Fact: Still folks in KY voted for her two to one; what pray tell is their justification and how do they feel this morning. I would be pissed to wake up and see she has yet again been less than truthful.

Fact: Clinton let her time pass, she should have run 4 years ago with her vast years of experience why did she wait? If she was going to recycle the Bill Clinton machine, there was no need to wait.

Fact: We can now ALL see that Patty Solis was wrongly blamed for this mess.

Fact: We cannot afford Clinton presidency let along her candidacy

Fact: Clinton Campaign smells like Bush while Mc's smells like really old Bush.

Vote for change

[in4success]

"Still folks in KY voted for her two to one; what pray tell is their justification and how do they feel this morning. I would be pissed to wake up and see she has yet again been less than truthful."

because people in WV and KY, even if they call themselves democrats get all their news from FOXNEWS (which is why they overwhelmingly voted for bush . . . twice) AND the hillary campaign successfully exploited the FEAR and RACE cards there through nuance, hick code, winks and nods.

[Denver80203]

She keeps claiming that's she's being outspent 3 to 1 but it would appear she's spending just as fast as he is. Difference is she spends on debt. And she wants to run the country?

[queotic]

That "he's outspending me!!!" argument of hers is so ridiculous. He's outspending her because he raised more money. If she could raise as much money as Obama, she'd be outspending him too.

[dollphingurl]

don't forget for a long time she was leading in campaign fundraising, and stuck her nose up.

i think hillary's biggest problem is all the expensive consultants she had, whereas if you notice, obama's accounts payable has not been more than about $700K every filing.

so, when you have a grassroots campaign that is based on a lot of motivated people in the communities you're serving, people who gladly pay for their own lunches, or voluntarily provide food for your staff because THEY BELIEVE IN YOU and NOT JUST YOUR SUPPOSED "INEVITABILITY", when you have people who are able to donate even five dollars to your campaign, and you are thankful for it, you are able to continue the marathon of a campaign over the long haul.

hillary needs to hush and call off that ferraro attack dog, 'cause it has no teeth.

if a black man named barack hussein obama can get where he's gotten in america, former first lady Mrs. Clinton needs to just. sit. down.

and stay down.

[WasteNJ]

I hope she's paying the little guys who are setting up the stages and catering the events, unlike earlier this year, when their campaign was running from their debts and getting collection notices. Doesn't sound like good financial discipline.
Anybody wanna make a contribution to pay off Mark Penn's multi-million dollar salary?

[wolfi101]

Buf of course. Don't you know, that it's the duty of every middle and lower class American to keep the rich - rich?

( I think, it's in the Constitution somewhere... maybe in an Appendix... )

[faretheewell]

Exactly right. If Barack were to decide to help bail her out financially, a show of good grace that I'm really not sure I support, it should be to pay off her debt to small business. My wife and I donate to Obama every month. We are certainly not taking money out of our family budget to pay off Penn, or to reimburse Hillary for her personal investment in the campaign. Those are debts or write-offs that should be borne by Hillary and Penn, not Obama's supporters.

[indieminded]

Obama cannot pay off her debts- it is illegal. He can only make a contribution to her campaign up to $2,300- same limit as every individual.

He can only do joint fundraisers in the future or ask his donors if they would make a contribution to Clinton's debt retirement.

Your donations to Barack will not go to Hillary unless you so choose.

[bygollymissmolly]

Any smart business person will have Hillary on a cash and carry status at this point.

[loria]

I read that she added $9.5 million in vendor debt last month alone.. So, it appears the answer is that she isn't paying them. Who out there is okay with this?

[dadele]

How is this viable candidacy?

[apoyo]

Who is she in debt to? Is it to rich people who can afford to write off a loss. Or is it to the small business person who is trying to eke out a living like most of us. It is unbelievable that she continues with this reckless behavior.

[naschkatze]

$9.5 million of it is owed to unpaid vendors according to the LA Times.

[LazarusLong]

Otherwise known as hard working Americans, struggling to make ends meet.

[agnostic1]

while some of the debt is owed to Penn and Wolfson (Penn STILL works for her, but is joined by yet another pollster) most of it is owed to little ma and pa companies foolish enough to believe that she would pay her bills.