If you run a business and can’t pay your employees, it’s probably safe to say you won’t remain in business for long. So what about the business of running for president?
There’s a certain situation former Texas Governor Rick Perry finds himself in right now. Just over two months after officially declaring his intentions to seek the GOP nod in 2016, there’s word he’s stopped paying at least part of his staff.
For the latest on the Perry Campaign the Standard speaks with Shane Goldmacher, senior political correspondent for the National Journal.
On Perry’s financial woes:
“South Carolina is just the start. His staff is not getting paid in Iowa, New Hampshire and even in his Austin headquarters… and it’s only two months after he launched his campaign. He raised $1.1 million in that second quarter, but that really put him in that bottom tier of the 17-person field. More than some others had, but still clearly not enough [money] if… folks are no longer earning a salary.”
On why he can’t pay his staffers:
“We’re in this new era where the campaigns raise money in limited chunks. They can only raise it in $2,600 or $2,700 increments. But Super PACs can raise money in million dollar increments. Rick Perry has a Super PAC supporting him that has a ton of money still. He has a bunch of staffers in all of the key early states, he can’t pay them. But his super PAC which is sitting on nearly $17 million dollars, can’t hire them either because they’ve worked for his campaign now. And basically… you can’t go from working on a campaign to a Super PAC, because they’re not allowed to coordinate…. He’s got all of these people that he can’t pay and another group with a ton of money and they can’t pay them either.”
On where Perry’s campaign should go:
“Going after Donald Trump didn’t work for him. Some folks say he just needs to forget the plane tickets to New Hampshire and South Carolina and just go for Iowa, essentially. This is more or less what he’s been doing, but basically cut out everything else. If he’s going to succeed, it’s because he’s going to shake enough hands there, go to enough small diners that people are going to like him. That’s his last shot. Because he certainly doesn’t have the money to run a national campaign.”
