Clinton: Deadbeat Candidate?

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What's the Clinton campaign's policy on small business? If a report published Sunday on Politico.com is any indication, it's to stiff them.

No, we're not talking about position papers on bills in Congress; we're talking about bills owed the campaign's many vendors in this long and expensive primary season. Politico interviewed people at two event production companies in Ohio that the Clinton campaign still owes more than $25,000. "Her campaign, say representatives of the two companies, has stopped returning phone calls and e-mails seeking payment of outstanding invoices," writes Politico's Kenneth Vogel. "One even got no response from a certified letter." The two sources both voted for Clinton in the primary, but told Vogel they regret that now. "I feel insulted by the way that the campaign treated this company and treated us personally," said an employee of the Youngstown firm Forty Two. (Forty Two also did business with the Obama campaign, which, Vogel writes, "has paid its bills promptly.")

These small firms can take some comfort in the fact that they're not alone. The story describes a "slew" of debts to schools, nonprofits, high-powered campaign consultants -- and, according to another Politico article, to the insurer that's providing health coverage for campaign staff. (America's health care crisis is suddenly real to them!) The Clinton campaign earlier told Politico, "The campaign pays its bills regularly and in the normal course of business, and pays all of its bills."