Clinton lagging on fundraising front

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s financial troubles returned to the forefront of the Democrats’ White House marathon on Thursday as Barack Obama reported raising $40 million last month -- double what the New York senator collected.

Clinton’s $20-million take would be staggering in any other race. But she faces a rival who has shattered fundraising records, and this latest benchmark highlights Clinton’s broader difficulties in catching up to the Illinois senator in the protracted nomination fight.

She has reported millions in debts and unpaid bills.

Drawing mainly on earnings from her best-seller, “Living History,” Clinton has lent her campaign $5 million to keep it from going broke. She cannot come close to matching Obama in spending on TV ads and mailers in contests over the next two months in eight more states, along with Guam and Puerto Rico.

Clinton, who wrapped up a 24-hour California fundraising tour Thursday with stops in San Francisco, Pasadena and Beverly Hills, faces further strains in meeting day-to-day expenses -- everything from charter planes and buses to stage equipment for campaign rallies.

“It’s stunningly expensive,” said Jim Jordan, who ran John F. Kerry’s campaign for part of the 2004 primary season. “It’s hundreds of thousands of dollars a day.”

For all that, Clinton’s lag in fundraising is unlikely to drive her from the race, analysts say. But it is making her climb to the nomination that much tougher.

For starters, it can deter potential donors from giving her money by creating the impression that her campaign is a lost cause.

It also bolsters Obama’s argument to superdelegates -- the party and elected officials likely to settle the nomination -- that he would raise more money than Clinton for the general-election battle against Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nominee-in-waiting.

“One of the things we consider is electability, and fundraising has a lot to do with electability,” said Edward Espinoza, an undecided Long Beach superdelegate. “It’s sad, but it’s true. I think both of these candidates have proven they can raise enormous sums of cash.”

So far, Obama has collected $230 million to $190 million for Clinton.

McCain, who faces a dismal fundraising climate for Republicans, has had less success. While he has not yet reported numbers for March, he had raised $60 million by the end of February.

By some measures, Clinton’s $190 million understates her trouble keeping up with Obama. It includes the $5-million personal loan and $10 million shifted from her Senate campaign.

Also inflating her total, she has made it a practice to raise money -- upward of $22 million -- that she can spend only if she wins the nomination.

Clinton has also returned $850,000 to donors whose money was gathered by Norman Hsu, a financier who faces federal fraud charges.

From the start, Clinton has relied more than Obama on big-money donors, who gave the $2,300 maximum and are legally barred from contributing more.

The $40 million that Obama raised last month came from 442,000 donors, 218,000 of whom were new contributors, according to the campaign. Their average donation was $96.

As for Clinton’s debt, her report for March is not due until April 20. But as of the end of February, her campaign was $8.7 million in arrears.

She owed $2.5 million to the consulting firm co-founded by her chief strategist, Mark Penn; $807,000 to MSHC, an ad firm; $466,000 to the media firm of Mandy Grunwald; and $427,000 to a charter aircraft company.

Smaller debts included $228,000 to Aetna and $62,744 to Blue Cross for healthcare premiums (a spokesman said they were later paid), and tens of thousands of dollars to universities where Clinton has campaigned.

Cal State Northridge is awaiting a $13,611 payment from Clinton’s campaign for security and other expenses at an event that she held there Jan. 17, a university spokesman said.

Clinton’s money troubles could be worse. She is well known to voters, and her campaign is drawing intense media coverage, which compensates somewhat for her inability to match Obama in ad spending.

“There’s just a huge amount of free press in this -- probably more than I’ve ever seen before,” said G. Terry Madonna, a political scientist at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania. “It’s front-page stuff every day.”

Clinton has tried to turn Obama’s money edge to her advantage. She has made it part of her pitch to donors and used it to cast herself as an underdog, a posture that worked well for her in New Hampshire and Ohio. Speaking to reporters on Thursday in Burbank, where she appeared on NBC’s “Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” Clinton said: “I’m used to being outspent.”

Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist who worked in the Clinton White House, said her fundraising might not reach Obama’s “astronomical level” but was still better than McCain’s -- and certainly enough for key contests ahead in such states as Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Indiana.

Hollywood mogul Haim Saban, one of her biggest fundraisers, echoed that argument, borrowing a phrase that former President Bill Clinton used this week in urging Democrats to stop fretting about the campaign’s extended length: “Chill out.” Hillary Clinton, Saban wrote in an e-mail, “will have all the money she needs to stay competitive.”

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michael.finnegan@ latimes.com

dan.morain@latimes.com