Clients sometimes don’t pay : Tight deadlines must be met : Regular customers have to wait, but . . . : Election Time Can Be Bonanza for Vendors

C. Christopher Cox’s campaign director spent part of Thursday morning on the telephone trying to persuade a vendor not to pull down the Newport Beach congressional candidate’s posters appealing for votes on Election Day.

The vendor, Candidates Outdoor Graphic Service in Covina, threatened to take back thousands of signs as a last-ditch effort to collect the money owed. By Thursday afternoon the company had the money in hand, COGS Vice President Greg Hummel said.

Not getting paid on time--or even at all--is a hazard faced by the hundreds of companies--from political consultants to printers, typesetters, graphic artists and mailing houses--that help Orange County candidates and interest groups orchestrate their campaigns.

“The flow of money is sporadic in a campaign because you depend on donations,” Cox campaign director Dale Wheeler said in explaining the holdup in paying COGS.

Vendors have innumerable stories about the clients who never paid their bills. The pressure to collect is especially intense as Election Day nears, they say, because any defeated candidate or the associated campaign committee will have a tough time raising money to meet old campaign debts.

“I think anybody who works in this business has been burned once or twice,” said Mike Mercier, a consultant with Mailing & Marketing Inc., an Orange-based mailing house.

Working for political candidates can be chaotic and demanding as well as risky. Vendors often log hours of overtime and drop work for other valued clients to meet the tight deadlines for a quick mailing addressing the latest issue. But for many Orange County businesses, the money to be made is too great to ignore.

Jim Corey, president and owner of Pacific Admail, a Fountain Valley mailing house, said that over the last 2 months his company has made almost $1 million in revenue from political mailings, which will constitute about 20% of the company’s annual revenue.

Mailing houses and other vendors report that business has been better than ever this year because of the many complex initiatives and hotly contested offices on this November’s ballot.

“It is the biggest year I have seen in the last 10 years,” Corey said.

Mercier of Mailing & Marketing called the amount of business this election season “astronomical.” He said that in many instances, mailing companies are so busy that they are being forced to subcontract with other firms.

Susan Levine, manger of GrafComm, a typography company in Santa Ana, said politics added about 25% to that company’s work load in October. “It is definitely significant,” she said of the extra revenue.

“We spend all that money buying tranquilizers and deodorants,” she said with a deadpan.

Levine said GrafComm, like many vendors, has found that as Election Day approaches, the rush jobs--and the accompanying overtime--become nearly routine. “If it is a rush job, they do pay rush charges, and about half the time they are on rush,” she said.

Scott Simpkin, owner of an Irvine graphic communications company, said that over the last 3 months the company has devoted 75% of its business to designing billboards, press kits and other graphics for political campaigns.

“It is lucrative, but it is mentally draining,” he said.

Bulk Postage Adds Up

Private businesses are not the only ones to reap financial gain from an election. In Orange County the U.S. Postal Service is collecting about $130,000 a day for bulk postage on election mail, now about 10% of the 9.8 million pieces of mail delivered daily in the county.

Nor are the profits being made just on printed items. Pacific Bell spokeswoman Linda Bonniksen said campaign offices in the county have installed about 280 telephone lines, each of which has an average monthly bill of $125. She described these as “no frills” telephone services that have a much lower profit margin than those used by the utility’s larger and more sophisticated corporate customers.

The price of telephone service, however, is significant for political consultants such as Lois Lundberg, president of Nason Lundberg Associates Inc., a political consulting and public relations firm in Orange. Lundberg said her firm is working on 14 campaigns this election season and receives $20,000-a-month phone bills that arrive in boxes rather than envelopes.

Many vendors prefer to contract with professional campaign consultants rather than the candidates or their campaign committees because the consultants remain on the scene whereas candidates come and go.

“When we are dealing with political consultants, (getting paid) is not a problem,” said Hummel of COGS. “We know they are financially responsible. But when we are dealing with campaigns directly, we find it is usually a riskier proposition.”

Vendors typically demand cash up front from candidates or campaign committees.

“Our policy is 50% down on the time of order and the rest before delivery,” Hummel said. He added, though, that he made an exception with the Cox campaign, believing, he said, that it was especially well-heeled.

Paul Brooks, a marketing specialist for Jack Nadel Inc., a Culver City distributor of promotional items, said his firm has limited its political business to one campaign management company it trusts and with whom it has an open account.

“We try to deal with a responsible ongoing organization and to stay away from politicians,” Brooks said. “After the election there is no (campaign office) phone to call.”