Frank Barbaro endorses Stephen Harrison

Yesterday, 2004 Democratic candidate Frank Barbaro endorsed Stephen Harrison in his campaign to take on Rep. Vito Fossella.

This could be a very interesting development in two areas. First it reinforces the activist and progressive trending towards Harrison. In 2004 Barbaro was the favorite candidate of many new political activists coming out of several presidential campaigns. He had the backing of groups like DFNYC and if I recall NDM among others who turned out large amounts of volunteers to phone bank, canvass and poll watch. Barbaro's campaign was actually my first introduction to politics in the district.

The second area is fund raising. Barbaro was almost the dream candidate for this district in terms of fund raising. He pulled in $425,000, keeping Fossella to just a little over a 2:1 financial advantage. When ever we talk about the DCCC getting behind a candidate you hear that they want to see candidate who can raise $250,000+. If Barbaro was in the race today he certainly would have the DCCC very excited by what he pulled in. If Frank can use his connections and fund raising prowess to Harrison's advantage we could see a nice healthy influx of cash. The question is what if any financial impact Frank will have.

Overall great news for Harrison as he probably will capture the few headlines and talk for this race prior to the fourth quarter FEC filings, our first glimpse at what Recchia has been able to amass.