Friday, January 11, 2008

Giuliani campaign staffers relinquish paychecks

This is off MSNBC News:

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. - About a dozen senior campaign staffers for Rudy Giuliani are forgoing their January paychecks, aides said Friday, a sign of possible money trouble for the Republican presidential candidate.

"We have enough money, but we could always use more money," contended Mike DuHaime, Giuliani's campaign manager and one of those who now is working for free. "We want to make sure we have enough to win."

At the end of December, he said the campaign had $11.5 million cash on hand, $7 million of which can be used for the primary. He disputed the notion of a cash-strapped campaign, and said Giuliani continues to bring in cash; several fundraisers are scheduled this week in Florida.

DuHaime and other aides stressed that relinquishing pay was voluntary and was limited to senior staffers.

"I want to do everything I can to make sure Rudy's president, and I speak for a lot of the campaign when I say that," DuHaime said. "None of us joined this campaign for money."

Still, the move raises questions about whether Giuliani's bank account is as flush as he needs it to be to cobble together wins in enough states to secure the party nod.

Giuliani is running into some money trouble here. He has pretty much dropped out of campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire, putting all of his eggs into Florida where he hopes to win with the New York ex patriots who are living there. The problem with this strategy is that media coverage of his campaign has also dropped. And since his name isn't brought up as much in the media, I'm wondering if Giuliani is having trouble raising money--especially if he's spending a lot of money on TV ads in Florida. So Giuliani needs to win big in Florida, otherwise his campaign could be finished.

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