StopLouBarletta.com

It is a fact of political life in US politics: If you can’t raise money, you can’t win the election.  Now, people can debate the fairness of this, but when it comes right down to it, it is what it is.  Yes, there have been a handful of cases where the candidate with little campaign cash has defeated a much better financed opponent.  However, those cases are clearly the exception to the rule.  I mention this only because, once again, Mayor Lou Barletta is considering running for the US House of Representatives and, once again, he is struggling to raise campaign money.

As reported on the always informative Gort42 Blog…

“Paul Kanjorski (D) has better than $600,000 in the bank with a big chunk of his latest take coming from banks, insurance companies and labor unions. His prospective opponent is Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta who reports $4,000 cash on hand and $263,000 in debt from his last 2 failed campaigns to become the Congressman from the 11th CD. Barletta only raised about $3500 and loaned his campaign $48,500.”

Aside from the basic financial importance of campaign fundraising, a candidates ability to raise money is also an indication that candidate’s political strength.  The fact that Lou Barletta is still unable to pay off the debt from his previous two congressional campaigns doesn’t really speak well to his chances of being able to unseat a very well financed incumbent.  The Republican Party, if it is serious about picking off Paul Kanjorski, needs to move past Lou Barletta and find a candidate who can actually raise campaign money and run a competitive race.  The simple fact of the matter is that while Lou Barletta may be very popular in certain political circles, he has proven incapable of leveraging that popularity into actual campaign cash or, for that matter, a political victory at the polls.

And aside from Barletta’s political financial woes, he has also shown an inability to keep the city he was elected to govern, Hazleton, in the black.  In 2006, the city of Hazleton ran a deficit of $158,867.  In 2007, that deficit ballooned to $655,347.  And while the official numbers for FY 2008 have yet to be released, it’s safe to assume that the deficit has, once again, gone up.  Also, please keep in mind that these deficits don’t take into account the whole Pension Fund debacle, so if that is taken into account, these deficit numbers only get bigger.  And, as admitted by Mayor Lou Barletta, Hazleton is on the verge of bankruptcy.

Considering all of this, I find it mind boggling as to why 1.) Lou Barletta continues to entertain the prospect of running, again, for the US Congress and 2.) Why anyone (aside from Paul Kanjorski and other Democrats) would want Lou Barletta to run for the US Congress.  Financially, Barletta is a train wreck.  His political campaign is running on fumes and his city is on life support.  The Republican Party must field a candidate who, you know, can actually raise campaign money and win a race.  And while it would be mildly entertaining to see Barletta flop around on the political stage, once again, and make an ass out of himself, once again, I would much rather see a strong Republican candidate actually run a successful campaign and get elected to office.  Lou Barletta should read the tealeaves, the writing on the wall, and the numbers on his campaign’s bank account statements and NOT run for the US House of Representatives.  He can’t afford it (literally) and neither can the Republican Party.

See also: For $250,000, Barletta Might Run for Congress

-Dan Cheek
www.StopLouBarletta.com
StopLouBarletta@gmail.com

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 16th, 2009 at 9:08 am and is filed under Fundraising . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.