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 Twelve of about 30 people who worked on Fiorina’s failed 2010
California Senate campaign, most speaking out for the first time,
told Reuters they would not work for her again. Fiorina, once one of
America's most powerful businesswomen, is now campaigning for the
Republican nomination in 2016.
The reason: for more than four years, Fiorina - who has an estimated
net worth of up to $120 million - didn’t pay them, a review of
Federal Election Commission records shows.
On the campaign trail, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO has portrayed
herself as a battle-hardened business leader who possesses the best
financial skills among fellow Republican presidential hopefuls. But
some former staffers on her Senate campaign are now raising
questions about that portrayal.
Federal campaign filings show that, until a few months before
Fiorina announced her presidential bid on May 4, she still owed
staffers, consultants, strategists, legal experts and vendors nearly
half a million dollars.
FEC records show, for example, that her former campaign manager
Martin Wilson was owed $80,500; legal counsel Ben Ginsberg $60,000,
and the widow of California political adviser Joe Shumate, who died
during the final month of the campaign, at least $30,000.
 Ultimately, Fiorina paid them. Fiorina's campaign declined to give
reasons for the delay, which was first reported in the San Francisco
Chronicle.
“I’d rather go to Iraq than work for Carly Fiorina again,” said one
high-level former campaign staffer, who asked not to be identified,
citing disclosure restrictions in his contract.
It's not common for campaigns to end in debt but not extraordinary
either, said Trevor Potter, a Republican former FEC chairman.
Usually wealthy candidates pay off the debts themselves "as a matter
of honor and reputation because they feel badly about vendors who
are stuck with these debts."
Even so, one Fiorina Senate campaign worker who was owed money,
California fundraiser Ann Kramer, said the time it took for her to
get repaid didn't trouble her. "I don't fault Carly at all," Kramer
said. "I love Carly." Kramer said she is now helping Fiorina
fundraise for her presidential bid.
Neither Fiorina’s campaign, nor the fundraising group Carly for
America, a Super PAC affiliated with Fiorina, responded to requests
for comment about the former staffers’ complaints, though Fiorina
presidential campaign spokeswoman Anna Epstein said that the money
was "owed by an entity - Carly for California. Not owed personally
by Carly."
WHAT ABOUT CLINTON, OBAMA?
Leslie Shedd, Carly for America's spokeswoman, said: “As is common
with many campaigns — including both Barack Obama’s re-election in
2012 and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2008 — there was
some leftover debt with Carly Fiorina’s Senate campaign in 2010.
However, this issue has been resolved and the campaign debt has been
paid off in full.”
At the end of her 2008 presidential bid, Clinton owed $12 million to
nearly 500 staffers, consultants and vendors, according to campaign
finance website Opensecrets.org. FEC documents show Clinton paid off
the bulk of her leftover debts by the third quarter of 2009.
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Clinton did continue to owe money, about $845,000, to one firm, that
of her pollster Mark Penn, which her campaign steadily chipped away
at over the course of the next three years, the records show. As
secretary of state, Clinton was banned from fundraising to clear the
debt, but both President Barack Obama and former President Bill
Clinton helped fundraise the money.
The Clinton campaign and Penn's office did not respond to requests
for comment.
Obama's 2012 re-election campaign ended with $5.6 million in debt.
As of April, $2.3 million of that is still on the books, FEC records
show. Obama's campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
BILL STILL UNPAID
One consulting firm who did work for Fiorina's joint fundraising
committee, East Meridian Strategies, said it has not been repaid the
$9,000 the committee still owes it for a bulk mailing it did.
"I can confirm we have not been paid," said firm partner Jon Seaton,
who is working on Republican Senator Lindsey Graham's presidential
bid.
Emails reviewed by Reuters show that Fiorina's campaign finance
manager, Joanne Davis, acknowledged the debt and said it would be
paid.
Davis did not respond to requests for comment. Sarah Isgur Flores,
deputy campaign manager of Fiorina's presidential campaign, said,
"That's odd because that debt didn't show up on any FEC report for
years, which they could have contested at any point. And now - 3
years after the committee has been terminated by the FEC - they are
claiming they are owed money."
The FEC declined to comment.
A number of former campaign workers said they were upset that
Fiorina paid them only once she had decided to run for president.
They also complained that around the time she lost her campaign,
Fiorina repaid herself $1.2 million of the $6.78 million she had
loaned her campaign.
Another source of pique: nine months after she lost the election,
Fiorina paid $6.1 million for a 5-acre (2. hectare) waterfront
estate in Virginia, near Washington, D.C. The house has no mortgage,
property records show.
(Reporting By Michelle Conlin, editing by Ross Colvin)
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