Democrats End Convention With $15 Million Outstanding

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The Democrats ended their convention week with a $15 million outstanding tab, a Democratic Party fundraiser told Bloomberg News.

Organizers were forced to open a $10 million line of credit after falling to reach their $36.7 million fundraising goal, yet still came up $5 million short, thus the $15 million total.

That’s a bill that will eventually be paid by President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign or by the Democratic National Committee, the fundraiser said. Until then, the Charlotte, N.C. host committee faces more than $5 million in immediate obligations to pay vendors and may get a direct cash infusion from the Obama campaign.

According to Bloomberg, part of the reason for the initial shortfall is that the DNC banned direct cash contributions from corporations. The Republican National Convention did not have similar restrictions.

“If they got within 5 million, considering that they used the line of credit, I think that’s awesome, given the restrictions they had to deal with,” Mike Dino, who headed the DNC host committee in 2008, told Bloomberg. “They should be relieved to be in that range.”

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and the RNC have outraised Obama and the Democrats for three straight months. Early numbers first reported last week indicated Romney’s campaign raised at least $100 million in August. The Obama campaign has not yet announced its August numbers.