Posted: Tuesday, 05 August 2008 11:44AM
Shake Hands And Come Out Fighting
Steve Corbett Reporting
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
The political kitchen just got hotter in the 11th Congressional District.
But despite the fire burning in his belly, Lou Barletta needs to regroup. The Republican Hazleton mayor who wants to dethrone longtime U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski needs to get control of his emotions. Lou needs to take a time-out and settle down.
If he doesn’t, he’ll absolutely lose the election he now has a chance of winning.
Even if Kanjorski did attack Lou’s “Italian heritage,” as Lou claims, Lou’s emotional response does no good, especially in the absence of evidence that telephone pollsters slurred his ancestry.
Slick Eddie Mitchell, Kanjorski’s media muscle, denies the claim, calling it “insulting.” Mitchell then offers up the sucker punch of the campaign season.
Mitchell tells Lou to “act like a man.”
In Hazleton such a slur might even be worse than an attack on a guy’s heritage. Machismo rules in hard coal country. That’s why Mitchell hit Lou below the belt with a sucker punch to end all sucker punches.
In the old days, Lou might go looking for Eddie.
But nowadays Lou’s reaction doesn’t cut it.
And as long as he can’t produce a transcript or tape recording – made legally, of course – of the offending telephone poll questions some of Lou’s supporters claim they were asked, he can’t make his argument stick.
Slick Eddie taunted Lou in an email I received on the air yesterday.
The missive was hardcore, even for Slick Eddie, whom I’ve known for many years. Slick Eddie outdid himself on this one, I told myself as I teased “Corbett” listeners and promised to read the note as soon as the commercial break was over.
As I read Slick Eddie’s words, I was truly surprised because Slick Eddie is getting harder in his old age.
“Politics ain’t beanbag,” he wrote. “But Lou Barletta could at least act like a man and stop crying, whining and complaining every time someone calls him on his record.”
In my mind I could see Slick Eddie standing on a Hazleton street corner with a tooth pick clenched between his teeth, flipping a coin and rolling up the sleeves of his black T-shirt as he awaits Lou’s boys to come after him.
Up the line in Nanticoke, another hard-boiled one-time coal town, I could imagine Slick Eddie’s boss laughing with his crew and waiting for Lou’s reaction as they plot their next ambush.
Those boys have their own ethnic group up Nanticoke way.
Wild Irish guy that I am, I wanted to get in on the action. So I decided to act as peacemaker and attempt to arrange a sit-down between the two. When I get to the station today I’ll call Lou and Big Paul and see if they will go head-to-head – mano a mano - on the air this afternoon.
Since Lou speaks only English I guess I should explain that mano a mano means hand-to-hand, a term once used by bullfighters to compete for the admiration of the audience.
So maybe I can bring these two tough guys together to talk.
Maybe not, though,
The race is heating up and at this stage of the game anything could happen.
Big Paul could send out a hit squad armed with pies – cream, not pizza – to stage an assault on Lou. Lou could hit back with a wet pierogi slap that could and would, of course, be interpreted as an attack on Kanjorski’s heritage.
As for me, I’m just an Irish agitator sitting back waiting for the dust to settle so I can go into the voting booth and pull the switch. In the end, the voters call the shots no matter how tough the candidates profess to be.
In the end, emotion should be tossed in favor of reason. That goes for candidates as well as the people. But reason rarely happens around here. We still welcome a brawl.
That’s why coal region politics hurts.
So get out the ointment and the bandages, fellows, because it’s a long way to November.
Expect serious casualties
Expect scandalous rumors.
Expect more pain than gain.
And may the best “man” win.
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