Barletta less than overwhelms Republican leaders

The NRCC had high hopes for Hazelton Mayor Lou Barletta. They were hoping Barletta would be able to turn his position and media recognition into campaign cash. But according to a Republican staffer who is close to the NRCC, they were less than overwhelmed by Barletta’s first quarter.

The NRCC, which is having money issues of their own, will be very limited in which races they can target come the fall. Their first priority will be to look at competitive races and to see which candidates have delivered in fundraising. Then if the polling is good for the GOP they will throw money at those who have proved they can raise it own their own.

So this week when Barletta showed $187k raised, he moved down the list. While Barletta still has plenty of time to ramp up fundraising numbers, it will become harder to do so with a slow start. Barletta will not be the one the NRCC is talking about to PACs until he can turn it around.

His Democratic opponent on the other hand had a good first quarter making things even tougher. Paul Kanjorski raised close to $450k and had over $1.8 million on hand with his pre primary filing.

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