Close to two months after announcing his candidacy for president, former Republican Texas Governor Rick Perry was forced to stop paying his campaign staff due to slow fundraising.
Sam Clovis, the head of Perry’s Iowa campaign, said that on a Monday night conference call, the Austin campaign headquarters informed the numerous Perry staffers that their pay would be revoked for the time being, the Boston Globe reports.
Beyond that, not many details were provided.
Since formally announcing his candidacy for president on June 4, Perry has raised approximately $1 million — a sum too scarce to pay his staff.
Regardless of this fiscal hiccup, however, Perry’s campaign will continue to carry out business as usual.
“I’m not going to change what I’m doing. I didn’t come on for the money in the first place,” Clovis has said. “I know everything there is to know about running a campaign with very little money.”
Staff in Iowa and South Carolina have announced that, for now, they will continue on the campaign as volunteers while Perry super PACs — that have engrossed about $17 million — will keep the former Texas governor in the race through Iowa caucuses.
Perry can maintain his candidacy, Clovis said, so long as he “can put gas in the truck.”