Kanjorski is in a precarious political position
Democrat is one of few veterans at risk of losing

By The Associated Press
September 18, 2008

NANTICOKE (AP) — Rep. Paul Kanjorski is an extremely rare breed of politician these days — a long-serving Democrat at risk of losing his seat.

In an election year when Democrats expect to strengthen their majorities in the House and Senate, the 12-term incumbent from blue-collar, heavily Democratic northeastern Pennsylvania finds himself oddly vulnerable.

It's a situation partly of Kanjorski's own making and partly because of the star power of his Republican challenger, Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta, who became a national hero among those seeking tighter borders when he went after illegal immigrants in his small city two years ago.

Kanjorski joins several long-tenured Republicans also in danger of losing their seats, but has the toughest re-election battle of any veteran Democrat in the House. A poll released Wednesday by Franklin & Marshall College shows Barletta leading Kanjorski by 9 percentage points, with 21 percent still undecided. The Sept. 9-14 poll of registered voters has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

The incumbent's difficult re-election prospects stem partly from a bout of bad publicity.

First, he caught flak for steering nearly $10 million in earmarks to a technology firm controlled by five family members, including his daughter. The company, Cornerstone Technologies, filed for bankruptcy in 2006 amid allegations of mismanagement, leaving creditors holding more than $1 million in debt.

Republicans have seized on Cornerstone and other questionable earmarks, including $3 million for the Kanjorski Center, a vacant office building in downtown Nanticoke, to slam Kanjorski's ethics.

"The ethics issues that have dogged him over the last couple of years have made him less than a sure thing," said Muhlenberg College pollster and political scientist Christopher Borick, who grew up in Scranton and has been following the race.

Other Kanjorski missteps were caught on camera — and posted online.

At a town hall meeting last summer, he said that Democrats "sort of stretched the facts" before the 2006 election by implying a Democratic Congress could end the Iraq war. The video showed up in May on YouTube — and the Barletta campaign began airing the footage in a TV commercial last week.

A second video, which also surfaced on YouTube, appeared to show Kanjorski taking a swipe at the video camera of a man aggressively questioning him about the Iraq remarks.

The other big factor in the race is Barletta, 52, a charismatic politician who became a staple of talk radio and cable TV news shows after he pushed through measures in Hazleton to punish landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and businesses that employ them. (A judge later struck down the laws as unconstitutional.)

Though immigration has taken a back seat to energy prices and the economy, the issue still resonates with working-class whites — a major constituency in Kanjorski's congressional district, which includes the cities of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre and a large portion of the Poconos.

Kanjorski's challenge was brought to stark relief at Coal Miners' Heritage Days, an annual festival in his hometown of Nanticoke. Barletta campaigned there, in what should have been enemy territory. Instead, Democrats lined up to shake his hand — and pledge their votes.

Joe Kutz, 75, a retired factory worker, also thinks Kanjorski has overstayed his welcome. "He did good, but he did good for himself, too. He set up his family," said Kutz, a one-time Kanjorski supporter. "It's time for him to move on, get out."

Kanjorski said he doesn't dwell on the fact that he faces his first serious opposition since 2002, when he defeated Barletta, then a virtual unknown, by 13 percentage points. Kanjorski lacked a major-party challenger in 2004 and coasted to re-election two years ago when Democrats took control of the House and Senate.

"I take it as an acceptable condition that can happen and does periodically happen," said Kanjorski, predicting a 13th term for himself.

Voters have "elected me for 24 years to be their advocate, and I think that my longevity indicates the success we've had in fulfilling the desires of the district," he said. "I'm confident that we certainly have a majority of people in favor of my re-election."

Despite Kanjorski's political problems, he does have some numbers in his favor. Democrats outnumber Republicans about 55 percent to 34 percent, Kanjorski maintains a huge fundraising advantage over Barletta, and his congressional district is among the most elderly in the nation.

Senior citizens are one of the 71-year-old's natural constituencies.

Indeed, Kanjorski was greeted like an old friend at a senior center outside Wilkes-Barre, with many of the 65 seniors who came to listen to him saying they couldn't imagine voting for anyone else.

"He does everything for us," said Al Sincavage, 80, citing Kanjorski's accessibility and the constituent services provided by his office. "He's a fantastic person."

The Barletta campaign points to its own numbers: In the primary, more than 35,000 Democratic voters failed to pull the lever for Kanjorski, who ran unopposed. And thousands of Democrats wrote Barletta's name in.

Barletta said he gets the same reaction wherever he campaigns: "It's, 'Hey Mr. Barletta, I'm a Democrat, but you've got my vote.'

"I can sense a change coming," Barletta said. "It's much different than in 2002."
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