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In deciding whether to run again, Barletta has campaign debt to retire

Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta may very well run for Congress a third time next year. But first, he’s got a little $250,000-problem to take care of.

That’s about how much campaign debt Barletta has on the books, according to campaign finance data. And with his top political adviser saying a final decision on whether or not to run should be coming before Christmas, Barletta is turning his attention to retiring the debt from his previous campaigns before embarking on another one.

Barletta’s campaign has asked his donors to contribute toward retiring the debt, political adviser Vince Galko confirmed to pa2010.com. News of the fundraising appeal was first reported by The Standard Speaker. The response so far, Galko said, has gone “exceedingly well.”

“The support is blowing us all away,” he said.

Meanwhile, a Republican already seeking the nomination in the 11th Congressional District, Chris Paige, is criticizing Barletta for seeking donations to pay down debt that campaign finance records show is almost entirely owed to himself.

“Today, Lou Barletta confirmed the obvious: he’s attempting to raise nearly $250,000 in order to enrich himself at his donors’ expense,” Paige wrote on his campaign blog.

Galko said that while much of the debt is indeed owed to Barletta himself, the loans Barletta gave the campaign were drawn from personal loans he took out himself. There was no way to immediately confirm that Tuesday.

“He’s not a wealthy guy,” said Galko, who ran Barletta’s campaign last year.

Barletta has had two disappointing runs in trying to unseat Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-11) this decade. He lost in 2002, and while most polls projected a win against Kanjorski last year, massive voter turnout for Barack Obama helped the incumbent edge Barletta by about three points. The debt stems from both campaigns, and except for a direct bank loan and money owed to a media consultant, the debt is entirely owed to Barletta himself.

This time, Kanjorski faces a primary challenge from Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey O’Brien and a political climate less friendly to Democrats in general. Seeing whether or not he can quickly pay down his campaign debt, Galko said, is a way for Barletta to gauge what support is still out there.

“He’s not going to go blindly into this a third time,” Galko said.

Even if Barletta decides to run again, Paige says Republicans should be asking themselves, “can Barletta win?”

“Even if we were to assume that he manages to raise money at the same pace he raised money the last time he ran and even if we were to assume that he could raise that money without incurring any expenses whatsoever,” Paige wrote on his blog, “he’ll need to spend months—months!—raising money to retire this debt, which means he’ll enter the general election flat broke with only a few months left to campaign against Cong. Kanjorski.  That’s a sure-fire recipe for Barletta’s third defeat.”

November 25, 2009 at 9:00 am

--Dan Hirschhorn

Tags: Chris Paige, Corey O'Brien, Lou Barletta, PA-11, Paul Kanjorski

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