Several years ago, I was a pollster. When we polled, Vice President Dick Cheney never broke 70% in name recognition, and we know that many voters who claimed to recognize VP Cheney’s name were lying. [Countless studies prove that 10 to 15% of voters will falsely claim to recognize an imaginary person.] Basically, politicians have far lower name recognition than they realize.

Besides, name recognition is easily purchased and readily attained by campaigning, so it’s an ephemeral advantage at best.

Third, what do voters really know about Lou Barletta? They know he lost twice; they know he’s pushed Hazleton to the brink of bankruptcy, and they know he led a racially-inflammatory campaign against Hispanics – a campaign that has devastated Hazleton’s economy and appears likely to cost its taxpayers millions in attorneys fees. By the end of this campaign, they will know that he’s raised taxes in Hazleton and that he’s used campaign funds to pay for personal debts.

Here’s the reality. Let’s assume that Barletta can raise money at the same pace he raised money last year. (In reality, he can’t manage that pace because his largest donors are legally precluded from donating to his debt retirement efforts.) Even under that extremely generous assumption, he’s not likely to raise $250k until late January or early February (depending on how much you think he’ll need to spend to raise that much money). Then, he’ll have to raise money for the primary, but that means he simply won’t have enough time to raise much more than $200 – $300k. I don’t discuss fundraising targets, but I’ll match that easily, which means the primary will be no worse than evenly matched. Assuming he survives, he’ll enter the general with $0, which begs the question: if Barletta couldn’t defeat Kanjorski after spending $1.3 million, how can he expect to defeat him after spending far, far less?

The simple, indisputable fact is that Cong. Kanjorski cannot win a positive, issues-based campaign; consequently, he will go negative. Why on earth would we send him a candidate with so many obvious vulnerabilities? Why would we send him a candidate who managed to lose a 10 point lead in the polls as a direct result of Cong. Kanjorski’s previous negative campaign? [And, by definition, Election Day turnout had nothing to do with Barletta's precipitious pre-election drop in the polls.] Why would we send him a badly underfinanced and obviously reluctant candidate?

If nothing else, I can promise you this: Cong. Kanjorski is praying we renominate Barletta because a third, badly underfinanced Barletta campaign is Kanjorski’s best hope for re-election.

Chris Paige
Republican candidate in the 11th District

Kanjorski doesn’t seem to be caught up in the investigation, but spending seemed to be a little questionable and Kanjorski kept throwing money at the airport. This is another little used airport that John Murtha would be proud of with not to many flights.

The airport has been so desperate for air carriers that a few years ago a pimp and prositute got pledges of government money to start an air service out of the airport.

The airport funding with lack of oversight from Kanjorski could be his downfall in the upcoming election if indictments come down the pike.