From dives to five-star luxury: how White House runners spend their cash

Rawstory:

Doughnut eateries, stationery chains and purveyors of private jets are cashing in as White House campaigns open their warchests leading into the make-or-break weeks of primary voting.

Financial data released by the candidates shows they have raised collectively a staggering 420 million dollars this year, led by Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, who has taken in just under 91 million.

Voluminous reports filed with the Federal Election Commission for the third quarter of 2007 also provide a snapshot of how, for the poorer second tier of candidates, it is a tale of two campaigns.

Clinton and her chief Republican rival Rudolph Guiliani spent a fortune on five-star hotels, spa retreats and chartered jets as they pursued their presidential quests in style.

But Texas Representative Ron Paul from the libertarian wing of the Republican Party (campaign issues: scrap income tax, the Federal Reserve and gun control) saves his pennies at motel chains.

"You know, we don't travel around with a retinue of media in a private jet," said Mike Gravel, a rank outsider for the Democratic nomination who has raised just 239,000 dollars overall.

"And, of course, I pay a price for that, because they don't cover me on a continuous basis like they do the other candidates, but that's the nature of the beast," the former Alaska senator told PBS television.

Through the services of a company called Flight Options, Republican John McCain had planned to head to electioneering stops by private jet.

But as he burned through cash, the Arizona senator took more commercial flights and recouped more than 420,000 dollars from canceling charters with Flight Options.

Humble aides for all the candidates were to be found in the cheap eats that dot the United States, such as the IHOP pancake chain, McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts.

Nothing was too small to be itemized: someone in Team Clinton spent 24.07 dollars at a Krispy Kreme branch in South Carolina on September 29. Paul listed all his gasoline receipts from refueling stops on lonely highways.

Fedex did a roaring trade from printing and delivering campaign materials, Staples was the favored supplier of the stationery, and American Express was raking it in from charges on the candidates' hefty credit card bills.