November 6, 2008 9:40 AM
A poll released in September frightened many supporters of immigrant rights. The rabidly anti-immigrant mayor of Hazleton, Pa., Lou Barletta, was leading the incumbent by 9 points. Barletta had risen to national prominence with his campaign to drive Latinos out of his city. A frequent guest of Lou Dobbs, he has quite a following in the Minuteman section of the Republican Party. Even though his anti-immigrant local ordinances were shot down by the courts, he still attracted a lot of out-of-state money from immigrant haters.
He revved up his prominence this summer following the murder of Luis Ramirez by a group of White teenagers in nearby Shenandoah when he suggested that if the dead man had stayed in Mexico he would still be alive.
Barletta lost his bid to become the next Tom (1%) Tancredo on Tuesday. While voters in Pa.'s 11th Congressional District were clearly dissatisfied with incumbent Congressman Kanjorski, they were not ready for the deadly radicalism of Lou Barletta.