By the time she dropped out of the presidential race in June 2008, Hillary Clinton had lent her campaign $13 million and owed almost as much in debts to various consultants.

This time around, the Clintons have signaled they do not intend to rack up any significant debt — personal or otherwise, according to sources familiar with their political and personal finances.


The debt avoidance strategy is already reflected in the early roll-out, where campaign manager Robby Mook is intent on creating a new culture around money, spending and flashy displays by staffers.

There are no business cards — a move that’s emblematic of Mook’s frugal and Quaker-like philosophy. In his view, working on a high-profile race isn’t supposed to be a star-making vehicle for staffers (at least not until after they win).

There are also no telephones at Clinton HQ in Brooklyn. Instead, Mook has instructed the staff to use a free voice-over Internet service, with headsets plugged into laptops. For their personal cell phones, they receive a modest reimbursement every month that many say doesn’t actually cover the phone bill.

Staffers headed to this weekend’s White House Correspondents Dinner are more likely to be spotted on the Northeast Regional than the pricier Acela high-speed train, since many are paying for the trip on their own dime. They know Mook won’t expense the tickets — unless they’re traveling for a time-sensitive meeting, staffers have been encouraged to commute by the inexpensive Bolt Bus.

In perhaps his hokiest attempt at instituting a new money culture, Mook is giving out a “Super Saver” award every month to the staffers who saved the most money. Mook isn’t spending money on an actual award: the thrifty staffers’ names will be posted on a wall in the office.

The new penny-pinching culture is more akin to the legendarily thrifty campaigns of George W. Bush than to Clinton’s last presidential bid, which blazed through money with abandon and had donors in a panic. And it helps to counter the narrative about how the Clintons themselves for decades have been enthralled with the trappings of wealth and celebrity.

The 2008 campaign spent $100,000 for party platters before the Iowa caucuses, where they didn’t have much to celebrate after coming in third place. In the week before the Nevada caucuses, campaign operatives racked up tens of thousands of dollars in bills at four-star hotels like the Bellagio luxury hotel in Las Vegas, and the Four Seasons, the New York Times reported at the time.

At one point during the 2008 Democratic primary, as Barack Obama widened his lead over Clinton, and her cash flow tightened, her campaign began delaying payments to vendors around the country, earning it a reputation as something of a deadbeat.

This time, Mook has told everyone to stay with supporters while traveling, and avoid hotels when possible. When visiting New Hampshire the week before Clinton’s announcement, for instance, Mook and top aide Marlon Marshall stayed at the home of a Democratic activist in Concord.

Meanwhile, the 80,000 square-feet of office space at the headquarters remain almost as bare as the day the campaign signed the lease. There is no conference room table— staffers pull together folding chairs for meetings. The cardboard boxes in which computers and printers were delivered do double duty as stands for televisions and printers, which are all default set to print double-sided to save paper. That’s a marked contrast from the well-outfitted 2008 offices, which the campaign filled with pricey office furniture, computers, servers and LCD projectors that it later sold off at fire-sale prices after Obama vanquished Clinton.

This time, staffers’ advice to those who are still seeking campaign jobs: don’t even bother to negotiate on the low salaries you will be offered because it won’t happen — and it will leave a bad taste in Mook’s mouth.

“There’s a culture here that every dollar we save is just as good as a dollar we raise,” said one staffer.

Mook’s cost-cutting on business cards and printer paper, of course, is small potatoes compared to where the real campaign money will be spent: outside consultants, television ads, and staff.

Some of Clinton’s biggest expenses last time around were large payments to the firms of the consultants involved with the campaign, including polling firm Penn Schoen Berland, which was owed $5.3 million by the end of Clinton’s campaign.

It’s not yet clear how much this campaign will spend on outside consultants, compared to last time, and a spokesman would not comment on those plans.

The campaign is expected to have a large payroll — it has hired 20 staffers in New Hampshire alone, and Clinton is expected to raise and spend $2.5 billion in total over the course of her campaign.

But for now, donors are relieved at least by the feint toward frugality, even if in the end Mook’s attempt at saving pennies, are really just that— pennies.

“Everybody who donates money to Hillary’s campaign wants the candidate to win, and that means we want the money spent smart and right,” said Jay Jacobs, a prominent New York Democrat and longtime Clinton friend and fundraiser. “I love Robby Mook’s approach. We see it, it’s evident, it’s something I hear from people who work at the campaign. It makes me feel good.”

Before officially declaring her candidacy, Clinton used her own money to pay a small team from her personal office to help her prepare for the race. While the official campaign staff have yet to receive their first paychecks, a spokesman said that by the time those checks are cut, they will be covered by donations. He would not say how much the campaign has raised in its first two weeks of fundraising.

Some donors have quietly suggested they would like to see the Clintons — worth as much as $55 million by some estimates – pony up some cash themselves. But that could have damaging side effects, namely providing another chance for Republicans to raise concerns about the family’s personal, charitable and political finances. And Clinton’s campaign is not expected to struggle on the fundraising front.

“Listen, you’d love to see somebody put in,” said Orlando trial lawyer John Morgan, a longtime Clinton donor. “I mean, you’re writing a check for $100 and they’re not? Misery loves company. But, if you can raise a billion dollars and not put a penny in yourself, then you’ve got a lot of investors who are vested and are going to work harder and, as you get to the end, they’re calling you for more and more and more.”

The campaign this week sought to rally fundraisers with events in New York City and Washington, D.C.

“These folks working for Hillary need to get paid,” said donor Kristan Peters-Hamlin, who has offered to throw a house party to raise money for the campaign. “The only way you can pay them is through primary fundraising.”

Top campaign officials have been meeting with donors and “Hillstarters” — individuals committing to raising the maximum $2,700 primary donation from ten people — with the goal of raising $100 million this year for the Democratic primary.

The goal has been to stress low-dollar online contributions to build out a base. “Initially fundraising will be a challenge — with lower limits and a smaller list than Obama in 2011,” a “Friends and Allies Talking Points” memo distributed at a donor meeting Thursday states.

The $100 million primary figure, however, is considered a low-ball estimate. “People always come in low to raise expectations, there’s nothing terribly original about that,” said a Democratic source supporting Clinton. “The numbers they give to their fundraisers are always much lower than expected. Whatever number they’re giving out, you can only believe they’re going to do a lot more than that.”