-By Warner Todd Huston
So far, the biggest negative that has stuck against Illinois Democrat Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias is that he is a poor money manager. The worst is that he was an officer in a family bank that has since gone under due to shady loans to mobsters — to the tune of $20 million in unpaid debt — and other bad banking practices . And now we can add another poor financial situation to Alexi’s already groaning deficit accounts: he’s still $200,000 in debt for his recently completed primary campaign.
As reported two weeks ago, Giannoulias has under performed in campaign fundraising so far in comparison to his GOP opponent, Mark Kirk.
It was reported that Giannoulias had only raised some $900,000 whereas Kirk had reeled in nearly one million since March 31. On top of that Kirk was reported to have had a four-to-one cash advantage over the Democrat’s Giannoulias. All total it looks like Kirk has $3.9 million cash on hand while Giannoulias only has $1 million.
And with the report from Politico this week you can deduct another $200,000 from Giannoulias’ cash on hand that should go to retire his debt still lingering from his primary campaign.
That is, of course, if Giannoulias actually intends to pay that debt. There might be some question about this because Giannoulias has held onto that debt for quite an extended period of time raising questions on whether or not he intends to pay it off.
Giannoulias has held onto his debt for months, though: The Illinois primary was the first of the year, back in February. And his fundraising contrasts sharply with Republican nominee Mark Kirk’s. The congressman raised $2.3 million in the second quarter and ended June with $3.9 million in the bank, compared with $1 million for Giannoulias.
Giannoulias claims he will pay the debt, of course, but he hasn’t yet to be sure.
So, while Kirk is swimming in campaign cash, Giannoulias is saddled with low fundraising totals and lingering debt. It all certainly makes this banker less than able with a checkbook.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDailyReview.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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