Posted: Monday, 28 July 2008 11:10AM
Sign Up Here For Democracy
Steve Corbett Reporting
Monday, July 28, 2008
With about 100 days until November’s election, I have yet to see a campaign sign for U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski. I’m talking yard signs here, not billboards, although I haven’t seen a billboard either.
Television commercials are making their mark very early in the game for the incumbent millionaire who has spent more time in Congress than some new voters have been alive, but grassroots support seems to be lacking.
Signs for Republican challenger Lou Barletta, though, are popping up like weeds in Kanjorski’s lovely Garden of Eden.
Bumper stickers heralding “LOU” adorn pickups and used cars in Scranton.
Two “LOU” yard signs are planted in front of two houses within a block of my house in the Hill Section of Scranton.
Two separate corners in Wilkes-Barre show off numerous “LOU” signs, several in the windows of an available vacant building on the corner of Pennsylvania and Market and several on a corner of North and a smaller street near the courthouse.
That corner is packed with signs small and large, so much so that it looks like a mini-Barletta headquarters.
Strange as it might sound, though, I don’t remember seeing as many “LOU” signs in Hazleton when I was there two Fridays ago. Maybe I just missed them. Or maybe Barletta is so much a native son that his legions of supporters take for granted that his name is indelibly etched into the hearts and minds of the people there.
For the record, I saw no Kanjorski signs in Hazleton, either.
Since I haven’t been to Nanticoke, Kanjorski’s hometown, I can’t tell you what’s happening with the sign wars there so maybe callers can let me know this afternoon on “Corbett.”
What I do know is that Kanjorski is taking Barletta seriously.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is issuing regular terse press releases all but blaming Barletta for the birth of George Bush. They even produced a TV commercial showing silly Barletta and Bush cartoon pop-ups.
Silly sells, but so does serious.
The most recent pro-Kanjorski commercial on television is a serious attack against Barletta from what seems to be white, working-class people who make it clear that Bush hurt them and that Barletta is no friend of theirs.
These are supposedly the same people who have turned to Barletta to save them from another Alamo as the invasion of Mexicans and others with accents and darker complexions homestead in Hazleton and throughout the 11th Congressional District.
Kanjorski isn’t talking much about immigration these days.
And when he does, he’s Jim Bowie wielding a big knife that will slash anything that even remotely resembles “amnesty” for “illegals.”
Barletta isn’t the only great white hope in town.
Kanjorski is one big white boy, too.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain is more liberal about immigration reform, although he, too, is talking more war than social welfare in America where small town defenders have taken to the barricades to prepare for the marauding hordes from south of the border.
But remember that Barack Obama voted for the fence between Mexico and the United States.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said he won’t send back undocumented immigrants who are already here, but he has little time for those trying to get in.
Obama wants to be Davy Crockett.
Still, he’s got more yard signs than anybody.
And I’ve still got a Hillary sign in my dining room window. When the letters fade in the sun, I’ll replace it with another.
Come Election Day, I’m writing in Hillary as my vote for president. Let Obama and McCain pound each other. I’m sitting this one out and refuse to take the rap if Obama loses.
As for Barletta and Kanjorski, I simply don’t want a Republican in that seat. My ideology is more Roosevelt than Reagan. But I also don’t like some of Kanjorski’s posturing and waffling. Maybe I’ll write somebody in for that race, as well. If I really want to make my point, I’ll write in Pancho Villa for that race.
My refusal to play party politics is a sign of the times.
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