Paige, whose candidacy was notable for his self-managed messaging style, announced his decision in a blog post over the weekend. His nominating petitions were being challenged in an effort to keep him off the ballot. And while Paige said he was “confident that I would prevail, I am equally confident that a protracted legal battle would not advance the causes I believe in, and—ultimately—those issues are more important than my personal political fortunes.”

“I began this race because I had something important to say about the bailouts and their moral, economic and political costs to our society and because I was alarmed by the dangerous ongoing transformation in our country and its politics, and I sincerely regret that I won’t have an opportunity to continue fighting for you and for the ideals we share,” Paige wrote. “Realistically, I knew the forces in favor of plundering our wealth and subverting our democracy were likely to prevail in the end, but I believed that I had been called to try, and I tried with everything I had.”

He also alluded to a recent death in the family, and said in a subsequent e-mail to pa2010.com that he dropped out to “address some health and family issues.”

Barletta, who has carried the Republican banner in the general election twice before, was the only other GOP candidate seeking to get on the primary ballot. Paige had been fiercely critical of Barletta and his electoral viability, and Paige did not endorse Barletta in his farewell message. Though Barletta was always considered the front-runner with deep party support, Paige, a wealthy hedge fund lawyer, was expected to dip into his own pocket to fund a race that would have drained some money from Barletta’s war chest.

On the Democratic side, Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey O’Brien is looking to knock off incumbent Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-11).

A petition to keep Republican Jean Craige Pepper of the primary ballot for Lieutenant Governor has already been set aside. We’re still trying to figure out exactly why, but from a quick review of court documents, it looks like the complaint was simply withdrawn. That means a whopping nine Republicans will indeed vie for GOP votes for Lt. Gov. in May.

Meanwhile, loads of hearings have been scheduled.

A challenge to incumbent Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper’s (D-3) nominating petitions, filed by her primary opponent Mel Marin, will have a hearing Wednesday morning. Dahlkemper is being represented by Clifford Levine, the same high-profile election lawyer handling the ballot challenge against Republican Pat Meehan in the 7th District.

A hearing on the challenge to keep 11th District GOP hopeful Chris Paige off the ballot is set for March 30.

A hearing on the ballot challenge against 17th District Democratic hopeful Sheila Dow-Ford is scheduled for April 7.

And hearings for the ballot challenges against 7th District Democratic candidates E. Teresa Touey and Gail Conner—both of which were spurred by Democrat Bryan Lentz—are set for April 6 and April 7, respectively.

But in the meantime, here are a few that jumped out at us.

Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper (D-3) appears to be the only incumbent whose spot on the ballot for reelection is being challenged. Mel Marin, a Democrat opposing Dahlkemper in the May primary, filed a petition to keep her off the ballot Tuesday, according to public records. A docket sheet says he’s representing himself in the case.

Meanwhile, Republican woulds clearly like to see Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta avoid a primary challenge on his way to another bid in the 11th Congressional District. Two people filed a petition against Republican candidate Chris Paige on Tuesday, according to court records. One of them is being represented by Lawrence Tabas, a Philadelphia lawyer who also serves as general counsel to the state GOP, which is firmly behind Barletta.

And 8th District Republican hopeful James Jones is also being challenged. One of a handful of Republicans to stay in the race against former Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick, Jones’ nominating petitions are being challenged by Kelly Unger. We’re not yet sure who Unger is, though she shows up on the Facebook page for Republican candidate Gloria Carlineo. She’s being represented by prominent Bucks County lawyer Lawrence Otter.

UPDATE: A reader points out that Kelly Unger is listed as a “person of contact” on Carlineo’s campaign Web site. She is presumably either a staffer or a volunteer.

Think pa2010.com is catering to a narrow niche? Think again.

A plethora of new Web sites are sprouting up in the blogosphere, mostly as vehicles to bash candidates loathed by their authors, but sometimes just to cover a particular race from a certain ideological view. Whether these blogs will play any significant role in shaping the mainstream media narratives surrounding the 2010 elections remains to be seen. At a minimum, they serve as yet another window for journalists with larger editorial portfolios to get a ground-level look at the races they’re covering.

A site that might be most vocal in subjecting its subject to constant and withering criticism is Jr. Jim Cawley, which targets the Bucks County Commissioner who recently won the state GOP’s nomination for Lieutenant Governor. The site loudly proclaims of Cawley, “the more you know, the less you want!” At various times, the site has highlighted campaign contributions to Cawley from labor organizations, called him a “phony Tea Partier” and pointed out his long career on the government payroll.

In many ways, the site speaks for a small but vocal group of conservative activists who are unhappy that Cawley is running on their party’s gubernatorial ticket, but have little power to do anything about it.

“The only thing I would say is that most of what’s on that site is half-truths and quotations taken out of context,” Cawley said in a brief interview.

As conservatives become more mobilized online, Republicans seem to find themselves targeted from the right by these new sites, while Democrats have yet to engender quite the same level of localized vitriol. The Unvarnished Truth on Tom Marino assails the GOP candidate in the 10th District. StopLouBarletta.com has spared no criticism of the Hazleton Mayor and Republican candidate in the 11th District, and his primary opponent Chris Paige has used the site as a natural extension of his self-messaging strategy.

It’s not always obvious who runs these sites, though the Barletta critic, Wilkes-Barre travel agent Dan Cheek, has made no efforts to hide his identity, even recently launching an accompanying Facebook page.

Some sites simply offer niche coverage of local races, like PA-08, a blog covering the 8th District.

If nothing else, the sites are a manifestation of a vocal conservative constituency, even if it’s one that’s louder than it is sizeable.

“I don’t think it necessarily says anything about the conservative movement,” Cawley said. “I’ve known and have worked throughout my career with my fine conservative activists. I know that the vast majority of conservatives are honorable and committed individuals. It’s just unfortunate that in cases like this, whoever published that didn’t have the courage of their convictions to put their name on it.”

According to Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-11) and other bank-bailout apologists, the bailouts prevented a catastrophic run on the American financial system. Just think about that claim for a moment. Whatever we stood to lose as a result of Wall Street’s collapse, didn’t Wall Street stand to lose more? Wouldn’t they have at least tried to prevent their own collapse? Or are we really supposed to believe that whenever financial institutions get into trouble, bankruptcy is their only option? Unlike firms in other industries, financial institutions can’t cut expenses, renegotiate terms, stretch out payments, or reduce salaries? They can’t issue new shares or borrow at more onerous terms? In fact, we now know that Lehman Brothers turned down multiple offers that would have prevented its bankruptcy because Lehman expected the government to bail it out on more generous terms. In other words, Lehman’s collapse proves that Wall Street prefers government bailouts; it just doesn’t prove that it needs them.

Even if bankruptcy is a distressed financial institution’s only option, why should taxpayers suffer? Surely, all financial institutions have owners. Why shouldn’t those owners take the first hit? Likewise, all financial institutions have creditors. Why shouldn’t those creditors take the second hit? That is, how can anyone seriously contend that the U.S. financial system requires taxpayers to take the first hit?

As I have argued before, we could have prevented a run on the U.S. financial system at no cost to taxpayers by amending the bankruptcy code to make trading counter-parties “critical vendors,” which simply means that they would be paid before most other creditors. By moving counter-parties to the front of the line, we would have broken the chain in the chain reaction. Granted, this solution would have injured Wall Street’s shareholders and bondholders, but why should taxpayers suffer to protect Wall Street’s shareholders and bondholders?

Although it’s certainly true that allowing financial institutions to fail makes investing in financial institutions riskier, it’s not clear why we would want to make investing in financial institutions less risky than all other investments. That is, why do we want to subsidize financial institutions? Would we support a plan that taxes financial institutions at a lower rate than firms in other industries? Would we support a plan that sent large cash subsidies to financial institutions? Then why should we support bailouts—the effects of which are indistinguishable from tax breaks and cash subsidies? Unless and until someone can prove that Wall Street generates externalities (social benefits) that no other industry can produce, no one can defend bank bailouts as necessary.

Wall Street collapsed when the housing bubble popped—resources that had been flowing into Wall Street as a result of the housing bubble should have been redirected away from Wall Street towards our more productive sectors. To use an agricultural analogy, Wall Street’s fields needed time to recover, so they should have been left to lie fallow while we planted our seeds in healthier fields. By bailing out Wall Street, therefore, we reversed that healthy outflow of resources, forcing our scarce capital into our least productive firms in our least productive sectors. Just as scattering the best seeds in the worst fields tended by the worst farmers yields a smaller crop, forcing even more of our resources into Wall Street created even more economic misery. Arguing that one can save Main Street by saving Wall Street is patently absurd, notwithstanding the fact that so many experts who work on Wall Street or otherwise depend on its largesse maintain the opposite.

And the bailouts absolutely will impoverish our nation.

First and foremost, the bailouts undermined the rule of law by forcing investors to wonder whether a firm would be eligible for a bailout and what the terms of that bailout would be. Guess right, and you’re a Goldman Sachs shareholder who benefits from government largesse. Guess wrong, and you’re a Lehman Brothers shareholder who does not. Since it’s impossible to know which firms will be saved and which firms will not, investors must charge a risk premium to all American firms. That is, the bailouts made it more expensive for American firms to borrow and to attract capital, which means our economy will be smaller and less successful than it otherwise would have been. Second, the bailouts exacerbated our budget deficits. Without radical policy changes, our debt will eventually reach 100 percent of GDP, which—historically—has been the point at which nations rapidly decline. Third, the bailouts hijacked monetary policy. Before the bailouts, the Federal Reserve owned mostly Treasuries, but after the bailouts, the Fed held mostly junk it purchased at inflated prices from Wall Street. At this point, therefore, any attempt to raise interest rates would crater the value of those securities and force the government’s borrowing costs to explode. Since the Fed has a license to print money, it can’t go broke, but it can—and probably will—destroy the value of the dollar.

In short, the bailouts were Wall Street’s version of a coup. Although the Constitution grants the power to borrow against the full faith and credit of the U.S. exclusively to Congress, Wall Street has usurped that power by issuing debt with an “implicit” guarantee. Sadly, Congress appears ready to formally abdicate its power by adopting a “reform” package that would empower the executive branch to transform these implicit guarantees into explicit guarantees. Granted, Congress has not yet surrendered its taxing authority to Wall Street, but that might only prove that Wall Street would prefer that Congress bear the brunt of public outrage over taxes. Electing financially unsophisticated candidates like Congressman Kanjorski and Mayor Lou Barletta has a cost, and this election will decide just how much more that cost will be.

The writer is a Republican candidate in the 11th Congressional District.

1. Spending on one’s own campaign is all the rage, and why not? Surely no one believes in a candidate as much as the candidate himself. Be they in-kind expenditures, direct donations or campaign loans, House candidates in Pennsylvania kicked more than $700,000 into their own races in late 2009, according to campaign finance data. There’s the relatively small spenders, like the $3,400 spent by 11th District Republican Chris Paige to cover expenses. Then there’s the big dogs, like 6th District Democrat Doug Pike, who gave his campaign another $340,000 last quarter, and 6th District Republican Steven Welch who gave his campaign $150,000 after sticking to loans worth half-a-million earlier in the cycle. Throughout this cycle, Pike and Welch alone have thrown a combined $1.5 million at their own candidacies.

2. Sometimes the money race looks just plain unfair. Take Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz (D-13), who’s $2.84 million on hand is more than 100 times what her potential GOP rivals have—combined. Or what about state Representative Bryan Lentz (D-Delaware)? He’s out-raising his primary opponents more than 140-fold.

3. Go Phillies! Nothing wrong with a $500 contribution to Republican 7th District hopeful Pat Meehan, courtesy of the president of the 2008 World Series champs.

4. Gotta spend money to make money. Republican Bill Russell has raised $2.8 million since late 2008. But he’s spent almost all of it on massive direct-mail and voter contact efforts., and finished 2009 with just $211,000 in the bank. His candidacy was very much based on unseating longtime Congressman John Murtha (D-12). But after Murtha’s unfortunate passing, will Russell still be able to raise as much?

As he looks for another showdown with Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-11), the first quarter of 2010 will be a more accurate gauge of his fundraising prowess. His Republican primary opponent, hedge fund executive Chris Paige, has signaled he’ll spend at least $300,000 on the nominating contest.

Campaigns for Barletta’s two previous unsuccessful races against Kanjorski, in 2002 and 2008, still carry a combined quarter-million dollars of debt.

Paige, considered an underdog to party-favorite Lou Barletta, has raised about $21,000 during the election cycle so far, and finished 2009 with only $3,500 in cash on hand, according to campaign finance data. Much of it was in the form of in-kind contributions from the candidate himself.

In an e-mail on Saturday, Paige implied that any money he couldn’t raise up to at least $300,000, he would kick in himself.

“After meeting with so many people in this District, I have decided to run, and I have stepped up my fundraising accordingly,” Paige wrote.

Barletta had about $52,000 on hand at the end of 2009.

Not Chris Paige.

A few months into his Republican bid for Congress in the 11th District, and barely a month after he got a primary opponent in Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta, Paige appears to have settled into a comfortable rhythm as his own spokesman. He blogs. He e-mails reporters details policy statements. And he seemed to score his first PR coup of the race this week when his critique of Barletta’s plan to sell the city’s water authority to a private company prompted The Times-Leader to scrutinize it more carefully.

In an interview with pa2010.com, Paige, who is general counsel for a hedge fund management company, said that directly engaging Barletta was the only way to give voters a true policy debate.

“The only way policy issues get debated in our society is to get one candidate in favor and one against,” Paige said. “The reason I am injecting myself is because this is the way policy is debated in our society.”

With overwhelming party support in his third run for Congress this decade, Barletta undoubtedly remains the front-runner in this year’s primary. But in a new media landscape that allows candidates to bypass the media filter more often than before—and with a chunk of change from his own bank account—Paige could prove more formidable than some think. While he wouldn’t give a specific number, Paige said he does plan to spend his own money on the race.

Once he hires a campaign manager soon, Paige said, “I don’t think that you’ll hear from me as often, but I think I’ll always be the main spokesman. I view that as one of my comparative advantages. I think I write well, I think I speak well, so I’ll probably be out thre more than other candidates.”

While he acknowledged that his direct-messaging strategy is unusual, Paige said that “people right now are looking for something different.”

Barletta’s senior adviser Vince Galko said Barletta would have plenty of venues through which to get his own message out.

“Mr. Paige has certainly been very active sending out releases and posting things to his blog,” Galko said. “I think he also benefits from the fact that the media likes the idea of a Republican primary. they’re intriguide by Mr. Paige’s recent switched to the Republican Party and the dynamics behind that. Mayor Barletta just got into the race and will be getting his message out there. But he’s also working very hard as the mayor of a city. It’s nice that Mr. Paige has the time to do that stuff.”

It’s far too early to make such a blanket “most vulnerable” statement this year. But with Barletta jumping into the race against Kanjorski for the third time this decade, analysts are looking forward to another close race in a state already playing host to some of the country’s most competitive contests in the country. Barletta’s latest bid comes a year after Kanjorski was nudged to reelection, in part, by a massive turnout for Barack Obama and the worst political climate for Republicans in decades. To say the climate next year will be different is an understatement—and it’s hard to argue it won’t be a more challenging one for Democrats.

“This is far more about Kanjorski than it is about Barletta,” said G. Terry Madonna, a pollster and political scientist at Franklin & Marshall College. “That’s typically the way races against incumbents are. I’m not prepared to say Kanjorski is the underdog, but this should turn out to be a competitive race.

“What we don’t know is to what degree Kanjorski has tried to inoculate himself against some of the problems he had in 2008,” Madonna added, “or whether he’s run the string out and voters just want change.”

Incumbents who have stayed in office as long as Kanjorski inevitably run up against some level of voter-fatigue, regardless of party and perhaps even performance in office. And while Barletta will no doubt seek to frame the election as a referendum on Kanjorski and congressional Democrats in Washington, he could find himself confronting a different kind of voter fatigue. After seeing him lose at the polls twice, it remains to be seen if voters—including Republican primary voters who will decide whether he or Chris Paige moves on—will take Barletta as seriously as they did last year.

“There is often a shadow here—you lose a couple of times and people start to question if you’re the right candidate to do the unseating,” said Chris Borick, a pollster and political scientist at Muhlenberg College. “He keeps a lot of the things that were good about him before … but he also carries some baggage with him.”

Madonna said pinpointing that point of diminishing returns—or no returns—is difficult to do.

“There are cases where persistence pays off and there are cases where the voters simply look at a candidacy and don’t take it as seriously as the would the first time the person ran,” he said.

If there’s one thing political watchers agree upon, it’s that Barletta’s political ambition keep pulling him to look higher.

He’s a known political entitiy who clearly is not going to be content staying in Hazleton,” Borick said. “Mayor of Hazleton doesn’t seem like its his end destination in his ambitions.”