West Des Moines, January 26, 2004 - They came to town, tried to get your vote and then left for New Hampshire.
But one presidential candidate may have left a big bill for a small West Des Moines deli. The campaigns ate, drank and slept at dozens of places across town. For the most part they paid their bills.
This is how it's supposed to work inside the Brown Bag Deli. Owner Scott Hoffman makes you a turkey sandwich and then you pay for it.
Scott will tell you deliveries are a little different, especially one back on the 16th of this month. That was a big order for this small business of four employees. 200 brown bag specials...with turkey, roast beef, ham and veggie sandwiches. The total...$963.01.
As he headed out that day, Scott remembered this customer has paid its bills late a couple times before. So he promised delivery this time with one condition, "c.o.d."
He showed up at the customer's downtown office just in time for lunch. The Dean headquarters was utter chaos. But he couldn't find anyone who'd pay him. They said try the other building next door. Same answer next door, try the other building. Scott went back and forth for 20 minutes. Nobody would pay.
He just assumed they would pay in good faith. After all, Dick Gephardt's campaign paid its lunch bills on time. And Howard Dean has thousands of followers in Iowa. Can't one of them give Scott his money?
We tried all day to reach Howard Dean's people-- no comment from them yet. By the way, Scott Hoffman says he considered himself a possible Dean supporter before the incident. He's since changed his mind.
We're checking unpaid debts from other campaigns and haven't found any yet.
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Jared is fortunate Dean didn't order sandwiches from his shop.
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to co-worker)"I dunno man,that fucker just pulled his hoodie up and hauled ass".
