Owner of campaign bus company: Secret Service hurting my business ("The Obama Effect")

President Obama took off on a road trip across the Midwest last week in a brand new government-owned bus to talk with ordinary people about getting the economy going again.

But Johnny Williams, an Alabama businessman who makes a living by leasing these kinds of buses to political figures, said the Obama tour was just a painful reminder of how the government is doing things that could hurt his business.

That’s because this is the first presidential election where the incumbent president and the eventual Republican nominee will have the option of using a Secret Service-owned bus for campaign tours instead of leasing one from someone like Williams. Earlier this year, the Secret Service, citing security concerns, purchased two buses of their own for this purpose.

“The government went into competition with me,” Williams lamented to The Daily Caller. “Something is not right, or fair about this.”

Williams, whose company John L. Productions has leased buses to presidential campaigns since 1988, fears he could now lose business over it.

“This eliminates the need for my services,” he said, “thus killing off another small business owner.”

In the past, the Secret Service would pay to install extra security features on buses candidates under their protection would lease from people like Williams.

His company’s history of driving around presidents and presidential candidates span from George H.W. Bush in 1988 to John McCain in 2008. Other candidates who have used his buses include Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan, Bob Dole, Steve Forbes, George W. Bush, Gary Bauer, John Edwards, John Kerry and Sam Brownback.

In an interview, Ed Donovan, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said the buses were purchased to offer those under their protection the option of using a more secure bus.

Donovan also pointed out that it’s possible for Obama or the Republican nominee to lease a bus from someone like Williams instead of using one owned by the Secret Service.

“The President of the United States doesn’t have to get into a vehicle we have,” he said. “I mean, he could say, ‘I want to drive in a convertible.’ But we have to make recommendations based on our intelligence, our information and our experience. And that’s what we go with.”

Williams said he’ll make the pitch to candidates that there’s an advantage to leasing a bus from him, instead of using the government’s bus. For one thing, they can’t display campaign logos on the all-black Secret Service bus, he pointed out.

“It’s government property,” Donovan said. “It’s the same as one of our limousines. You never see anything on the side of one of our cars.”

The Secret Service purchased their two new buses from the Tennessee-based Hemphill Brothers Coach Company. The Daily Caller was unable to reach the owners at Hemphill Brothers, a competitor to Williams’ business. A woman who answered the phone at the company’s office refused to give her name but said the company isn’t commenting on the issue.

I seriously doubt that the payoff period on these motor coaches, compared to lease/modify/unmodify/return costs, is anything short of decades. It takes a long time, spending $10K to $50K for modifications and restoration, to burn through $1.1 million, which was the cost of each of these loser cruisers.

I think you're drastically underestimating the level of security afforded the President if you think the modifications cost $10K to $50K.

They probably spent that much just on the fire suppression system.

Domalais wrote:

I think you're drastically underestimating the level of security afforded the President if you think the modifications cost $10K to $50K.

First, I don't know anything about what it would cost for the modifications.

Second, in several news articles about this, different Secret Service personnel have been quoted with the "tens of thousands of dollars" figure for the cost of modifying leased buses.

From a USNews.com story
The decision was made to purchase them rather than continue to retrofit leased buses for the temporary use of the president and other high-level protectees. That costs tens of thousands of dollars, and then the special features have to be removed when the bus is returned to the leasing company. Federal numbers crunchers figured it would be cheaper over the long run to buy the vehicles.

There have been other statements like this, and in some other articles, a guy named Donovan from the Secret Service was qouted about the costs and the savings. The figure stated for costs of the "old way" of leasing a motor coach and modifying it for security has consistently been described as "tens of thousands of dollars" in every article.

It takes a lot of "tens of thousands of dollars" spent every 4 years to make the $1.1 million cost of one of these motor coaches. I haven't seen any analysis of the actual costs anywhere.

Again, this could be legit. It might actually have saved the taxpayers money to buy these two monstrosities and outfit them. But the numbers given in the press reports don't add up to that. And there is nobody questioning this.

I still maintain that no self respecting Republican candidate will be seen in either of these loser cruisers. These toys belong to Emporer Obama, and won't be used by anyone else. Hopefully we can elect a leader who will sell them off soon, before they depreciate to no value at all.

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