StopLouBarletta.com

The latest campaign finance numbers have been released and, to no one’s surprise, Lou Barletta’s finances are by far the most abysmal in the race for the 11th Congressional District.  Mayor Barletta’s debt continues to grow, putting him at an increasing disadvantage to whomever he faces in the general election.  This is nothing new for Barletta, who has always struggled to raise funds and has always operated at a huge disadvantage to his campaign rivals.

According to the latest FEC filing, Barletta is lagging in almost every way possible to the other candidates.  Consider the following:

• Barletta raised $281,913 in campaign donations.  Compare this to Paul Kanjorski who raised $1,123,937 in donations.  Even Corey O’Brien, the Democratic challenger, raised $320,271 in donations.  This means that no matter who Barletta faces off against in the general election, he will be at a competitive disadvantage.
• Lou Barletta continues to build up debt.  To date, Barletta has more debt that any of the other candidates in the race…combined.  Barletta has managed to accrue a staggering $136,100 in debt.  Paul Kanjorski has $0 in debt and Corey O’Brien has only built up $4,367 in debt thus far.  This is notable because O’Brien is running against a powerful incumbent in the Democratic primary.  Barletta is running unopposed in the Republican primary, but has over 30 times as much campaign debt as Corey O’Brien.

No matter how you look at it, Lou Barletta continues to run his campaign on life support.  His campaign finances are a mess.  No matter who Barletta faces in the general election, he will be up against a huge financial disadvantage.  No doubt, the Democrats will spend early and spend heavily.  This will force Barletta to burn through his limited supply of cash early in the race just to keep up.  This is exactly what Paul Kanjorski did during the last election, when he faced Lou Barletta.  In the end, this all-out blitz proved too much for Barletta and his small pile of cash to overcome.

If not being very good at raising campaign cash was Barletta’s only sin, it would be easy to overlook.  However, Barletta’s inept handling of his own campaign finances mirrors his handling of the city he was elected to lead, Hazleton, PA.  Like his Congressional campaigns (all three of them), Lou Barletta has shown a shocking inability to make intelligent financial decisions.  The city is damn near bankrupt and Barletta’s only response to this crisis, which has been ongoing for years, is to raise taxes (even going to court to get permission to raise them beyond the legal limit) and slash city payrolls.  All this has accomplished is to drive businesses out of Hazleton, raise property taxes to horrifying levels, and make Hazleton one of the worst economies in the state.

Around the nation, Republican candidates are enjoying an incredibly favorable political environment.  Donations to Republican candidates are surging and many once-safe Democratic candidates are now in competitive races with their challengers.  Despite all of this, Lou Barletta has still found a way to under perform.  I receive emails, on a daily basis, telling me how popular Lou Barletta is and how much the people love him.  That may be true (I don’t think it is), but if all of these people are so infatuated with Mayor Lou, why does he continue to struggle, year after year, to raise campaign cash?  The saying goes that something is only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it.  In the case of Mayor Lou Barletta, he doesn’t appear to be worth very much at all.  The Republican Party needs to leave Lou Barletta for dead and find a serious candidate who can actually run a competitive political campaign.  Lou Barletta should not, and will not, be elected to the US Congress.

See also: Mayor Barletta Disrespects US Military and Barletta Accepts Money from Drug Dealers

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

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 27th, 2010 at 7:20 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.