.
8/10/15, "Rick Perry stops paying all of his staff as fundraising dries up," Washington Post,
"Former Texas governor Rick Perry's presidential campaign is no
longer paying its staff because fundraising has dried up, while his
cash-flush allied super PAC is preparing to expand its political
operation to compensate for the campaign's shortcomings, campaign and
super PAC officials and other Republicans familiar with the operation
said late Monday.
Perry, who has struggled to gain traction in
his second presidential run, has stopped paying his staff at the
national headquarters in Austin as well as in the early caucus and
primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, according to a
Republican familiar with the Perry campaign who demanded anonymity
because of the sensitivity of the situation.
Perry campaign
manager Jeff Miller told staff last Friday, the day after the first
Republican presidential debate, that they would no longer be paid and
are free to look for other jobs-- and, so far at least, most aides have
stuck with Perry -- according to this Republican.
"As the
campaign moves along, tough decisions have to be made in respect to both
monetary and time related resources," Miller said in a statement.
"Governor Perry remains committed to competing in the early states and
will continue to have a strong presence in Iowa, New Hampshire and South
Carolina."
Katon Dawson, Perry's South Carolina campaign
chairman and head of a six-person staff there, said, "Money is extremely
tight. We all moved to volunteer status." But, he added, "Our team is
working as hard as it was last week."
News that Perry campaign had stopped paying its staff in South Carolina was first reported late
Monday afternoon by the National Journal. News that the campaign was
not paying any staff was first reported Monday night by CBS News.
The
Perry campaign reported raising $1.14 million in the second quarter of
this year and on July 15 reported having $883,913 on hand. The campaign
is scaling down its expenditures to bare essentials -- commercial plane
tickets and hotel rooms for the candidate and an aide or two -- and
hoping for a breakthrough moment, perhaps in the Sept. 16 debate, that
could boost fundraising.
Meanwhile, a group of Opportunity and Freedom super PACs
promoting Perry's candidacy -- which are in far healthier state
financially, having raised nearly $17 million by mid-July -- are
planning to compensate for the shrinking campaign.
Austin
Barbour, senior adviser to the super PAC, said the group would step up
"to aggressively support the governor in a number of different ways."
“We’ve
got plenty of money," Barbour said. "That’s what I know. And we’re
going to put that money to use in Iowa to make sure the governor is in
the top three there. The super PAC is not going to let Rick Perry down."
Barbour
added, "He’s going to get one breakout performance at a debate and
he’ll really jump up in the polls. Voters need to see him perform very
well at a debate...This is a very fluid field, things will change a lot,
and we will continue to be very patient."
The super PACs are
legally barred from coordinating with Perry's official campaign.
Barbour said he anticipated after the campaign's financial filing last
month that the super PACs would need to step up and do some of the
responsibilities traditionally handled by campaigns, such as building a
ground organization. He said they have begun building an extensive field
program in Iowa, where the first-in-the-nation caucuses are critical to
Perry's strategy.
“We saw this was coming," Barbour said. "We started working on our own plan. We knew we would have to go build a ground game.”
Perry’s
second campaign for president has been hobbled from the start by his
weak performance as a candidate four years ago, demonstrating just how
difficult it is to make a positive impression after a poor introduction.
Perry
joined that race in August 2011 as someone seen as a potentially
serious contender for the GOP nomination. He was the long-serving
governor of a major state that had led the nation in job creation and
his rivals feared his potential.
His southern roots and tea party appeal
made him a candidate feared by his GOP rivals, particularly those in
the campaign of Mitt Romney."...
[Ed. note: This entire sentence is an embarrassment.]
(continuing): "Within weeks of announcing, he had risen to the top of the polls.
Almost immediately, he began to fall back, his campaign damaged by
attacks from Romney and his team as well as a series of poor debate
performances.
His campaign took a substantial hit at a Florida
debate when he came under attack for a Texas policy allowing children of
illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at state colleges. Perry
accused his critics of not having a heart, but the damage was done.
His
worst moment came at a later debate in Michigan when he could not
remember all of the federal agencies he had been vowing to eliminate as
president. His final word as he admitted he couldn’t recall the names
was, “Oops.”
That became the caricature of Perry as a poorly
prepared candidate. It was an image he was determined to erase as he
looked toward the 2016 campaign. Perry was candid about the mistakes he
made in that first campaign and in the intervening time immersed himself
in the details of domestic and international policies.
Perry
said he believed voters were willing to give him a second chance. During
the past two years, as he has traveled the country, he has earned
positive reviews from one-time critics, who said they saw in him a more
substantial and attractive candidate than in 2012.
But he has
lagged in the polls throughout this year, despite those better reviews
and improved performance on the campaign trail. Failing to qualify for
last week’s debate in Cleveland was a clear setback in his hopes of
moving up in the field. He appeared in the undercard debate, but there
it was technology executive Carly Fiorina who had what many considered
a breakout performance.
Perry now trains his attention on enough
support in national polls to assure a spot on the main stage at the
debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library next month.
Perry
aides said he hopes to continue raising money and is committed to a
strong performance in the early contests next year. Perry is planning to
campaign in South Carolina on Thursday and to visit Iowa next week.
News of Perry's money woes has surprised people in his political
circle. In the 2012 campaign, Perry was a fundraising leader, bringing
in $17 million to his campaign in a single quarter.
"Nobody talked about money being a problem,” said one former Perry appointee and longtime ally.
Perry's
troubles are reminiscent of Sen. John McCain's collapse in the summer
of 2007, though he rebounded and won the GOP's 2008 nomination."...
[Ed. note: WaPo now really grasping.]
(continuing): ""I
experienced this firsthand starting at the McCain campaign, a few weeks
prior to what became a mass exodus and downsizing because of
fundraising," said Brian Haley, deputy national finance director on
McCain's 2008 campaign. "It wasn’t the end of the campaign. It was
traumatic when it happened, but we all recommitted when it occurred and
took it to win the nomination."
Haley added, "In today’s world,
with varying political committees supporting the candidate, there does
seem to be an opportunity for campaigns to shift costs. So I’m curious
how the Perry organization decides to do that.”" via Free Rep.
.....................
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment