Callahan, McClure and Reibman Deliver Big BM

                      On Alan Jennings' radio show, they played nice. In fact, it was hard even for me to listen the full hour to the Democratic Northampton County Executive candidates, as they hit away at softball after softball. Tony Iannelli's Business Matters (BM) slugfest was a lot different.

Lots of BMs.

Iannelli, who doesn't have a mean bone in his body, still has an uncanny ability to bring out the worst in people. It's a gift. Don't believe me? Ron Angle and I were fun-lovin' guys until we hooked up with Tony.

And that's what I saw in Monday night's free-for-all. John Callahan and Lamont McClure took shots at each other, and Iannelli tells me a referree came in at the end of the broadcast to eject both of them. They called an undertaker for Glenn Reibman, who appeared to be dead for most of the show and was dropped off by a hearse.

McClure was portraying himself as the Savior of Gracedale. All he needed was a frickin; robe and a halo. At the same time, he branded Callahan an infidel who didn't care enough about the County's nursing home.

Finally, the heathen shot back.

"Gracedale sits up there today needing about $13 million worth of improvements. When we had Hurricane Sandy, the generator that was in place there lasted a day and a half, and then those folks up there, our elderly that are up there struggling, [were] without power. That's unconscionable.

"Everybody knew that it needed to be replaced, but there wasn't the will to tackle the problem. So while Lamont talks about being the Champion of Gracedale in 2010, when it came time to show that will, to put up ... make the vote to make those improvements up there, he didn't do it. So consequently, those folks sat up there, post Sandy, in the dark."

McClure: "It's fine if John wants to attempt to blame me for a generator failure at Gracedale."

Callahan: "Everybody knew it didn't work. It needed to be fixed. It needed to be replaced."

McClure got in a dig, too, over a controversial practice in Bethlehem to "borrow" money from certain City accounts to meet payroll and other expenses, instead of borrowing from a bank.

"Can you explain to us, why in 2010 and 2011, you borrowed money fro federal funds that were not lawfully allowed to be applied to general fund operating expenses. Can you tell us why you did that, and what happened?

Callahan: "You were saying earlier that the County has too much money in the way of a surplus and you wanted to spend that down and increase the structural deficit, which would put the County in fiscal peril. We in the City of Bethlehem have not had a cash balance up until the last couple of years when we've been running surpluses. Rather than go out and borrow that money from a bank to make those certain payments that we needed to make, we moved money from one fund to another fund to meet payroll and pay the bills that we needed to pay. And I'd do it again if I needed to. You learn, and maybe some day you'll learn this, Lamont, that as an Executive, you've got to make some difficult decisions. And at some point, you gotta' keep the lights on, you gotta' make payroll and you've got to keep the City moving forward."

McClure: "If the leadership lesson that you want to teach me is that, during your time in City government, property taxes have risen 43%, and you can't pay your bills and you have to unlawfully take federal funds, that's a lesson I'm not gonna' learn."

Who won?

McClure, who was on the attack most of the thirty minutes and hogged as much time as he could, probably thinks he won. But there's a reason he does so poorly at the polls. He makes points, but also comes across as a panderer. He was also condescending. Reibman has already declared himself the winner in emails to his fans, but that's because nobody really noticed he was there Not even him. He kept referring to himself in the third person, too.

Callahan was wounded by McClure's dig about robbing Peter to pay Paul, but had a surprising amount of knowledge about the County. On substance, he's the only one who really offered any ideas.