Posted on 02/04/2015 8:16:17 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney each finished second in their partys primaries when they ran for president in 2008, but they took dramatically different routes to arrive at the same result literally, in a way.
A deeper look into the candidates campaign expenditures reveals that Clinton spent more than nine times as much as Romney did on private jets during the 2008 race.
An analysis of public documents by National Review Online shows that Clinton took more than $19.2 million worth of private flights during the primaries before dropping out when then-senator Barack Obama finally built an insurmountable lead. Romney, who ultimately finished second in the primaries to Senator John McCain, spent just over $2.2 million on private-plane travel.
While Clintons longer campaign accounts for part of the disparity in private-plane costs Romney withdrew in February 2008, four months before Clinton ended her run Clinton had spent significantly more than Romney on chartered flights before the former Massachusetts governor dropped out of the race, too. By the time Romney called his campaign quits, the Clinton campaign had already spent $6.7 million on private planes more than three times as much as Romney.
Both campaigns had significantly lower charter-spending totals than their partys respective nominees, as presidential candidates receive huge flows of cash upon securing the nomination and have to pay travel costs for a running mate, surrogates, and staff.
The comparison between Clinton and Romney comes amid renewed interest in the former secretary of states longstanding affinity for private air travel. Last week, Bloomberg News highlighted Clintons preference for chartered flights during an analysis of her taxpayer-funded travels as a New York senator. During her eight years in office, Clinton took more than 200 private flights, for a total cost of $225,756. While members of Congress are permitted to charter their own private flights, the practice has become fair game for criticism in recent election cycles, especially as many lawmakers opt to fly commercially between Washington and their home states instead. A Clinton spokesman defended her travel decisions and called the private flights a cornerstone of the then-senators ability to reach constituents in the far-flung reaches of the state.
Clintons travel has been at the center of her messaging strategy since she left Foggy Bottom in 2013, and Republicans may want to keep it that way. While her supporters herald her record-breaking air mileage as secretary of state as one of her crowning achievements, scrutiny over Clintons tendency for chartered flights and her exorbitant travel demands has created a growing perception that shes out of touch.
And Clinton has only furthered that perception through a series of verbal blunders. Renewed interest in Clintons lavish lifestyle ramped up last summer during the book tour for her latest memoir, Hard Choices. In an interview with ABCs Diane Sawyer, Clinton recalled that she and Bill Clinton were dead broke and struggling to afford multiple mortgages and their daughters Stanford education when they left the White House in 2001. Critics pointed out that Clinton was already a senator-elect by the time her husband left office and had recently earned an $8 million advance for her first memoir, Living History. Republicans seized on the episode as a sign that Clinton had lost touch with the average American after her time in the Arkansas governors mansion, the White House, the Senate, and the State Department.
And just days after the interview with Sawyer, a report in the Las Vegas Review-Journal shed light on Clintons lucrative second career on the speaking circuit, adding even more fuel to the fire. The report, which was occasioned by a speech the former first lady later gave at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, revealed that both Clintons typically charge more than $200,000 per engagement. A few months later, the Review-Journal followed that report with another article, quoting from a startling list of demands included in Mrs. Clintons contract with UNLV.
According to this second report, the contract stipulated that Clinton and her entire entourage would be flown into Las Vegas in style only a $39 million, 16-passenger Gulfstream G450 or larger will do and that Clinton would be put up in a presidential suite. (Both demands, the Review-Journal notes, are standard for any Clinton engagement.) All promotional materials for the event were subject to approval by Clintons staff, and the university was prohibited from recording Clintons appearance. (Instead, it had to pay for a stenographer and provide the resulting transcript exclusively to Clintons camp.) Clinton would appear at the event for only 90 minutes and would pose for no more than 50 photos with no more than 100 people.
The event rankled not only members of the universitys foundation, but students, who questioned the decision to pay the former first lady $225,000 brought down from an initial request of $300,000 as the cost of attending UNLV continues to rise. (Clinton did charge the University of California, Los Angeles, the full $300,000 fee and also required UCLA to furnish her seat on stage with the pillows she prefers.)
In contrast, Romney, who has so often been lampooned by Democrats for his personal wealth and supposed lack of common touch, spoke at Mississippi State University last week for about a fifth of Clintons fee, spending six hours on campus and attending various events with students, faculty, and alumni.
Clinton has received criticism from both sides of the aisle for her diva-like travel requirements. Commentators ranging from NBCs Andrea Mitchell to Comedy Centrals Jon Stewart blasted Clinton for the dead broke comments. Former Obama aides David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs have warned that Clintons failure to develop a clear message for her campaign could allow her critics to define her, just as the upstart Obama team did when she was the front-runner seven years ago. And, in fact national Republicans are already doing just that. Last month, the Republican National Committee released a mock infomercial of Clintons speaking demands, hoping to paint her as out of touch and elitist before shes even declared her candidacy.
Should she choose to run an announcement that is expected in the coming months Clinton will face a difficult balancing act. Presidential contenders have undergone increasingly close scrutiny in recent years for their spending habits, with Chris Christie just the latest example. And by pointing to her global and cross-country travels in an effort to bolster her foreign-policy credentials, Clinton will inevitably run the risk of calling attention to her lavish, expensive travel regimen.
As she crisscrosses the country looking to connect with potential supporters on the campaign trail, Republicans will make sure one question remains prominent in voters minds: How did she get there?
Andrew Johnson is an editorial associate at National Review Online.
I’ll Drink To That , (Hiccup,Burp)
I’ll guarantee you that fugly top cost at least $400. The rulers don’t wear cheap clothing.
I thought she said she was poor? </s
Plus for Hillary! LIV-Americans want a leader who knows how to live lavishly and spend OPM.
Not too shabby for a totally phony, really homely hippie in college.
What was that hipppie culture all about again?
It's impossible to defy the laws of physics.
How easy can it be to drape a tent over a lumpy hippo and make it look fashionable and attractive?
It is what it is.
There was a report that she required 58 Secret Service agents to accompany her on a recent trip to Canada to give a speech (for which she presumably got her usual honorarium). Was that accurate?
Probably... as there were 65 agents with her at another recent speech where she took in fees between $200,000-$300,000, for a single appearance.
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