Independent Bailey vows a forceful race

Don Bailey, candidate for Pennsylvania attorney general, has a message for those he blames for forcing him out of the Democratic primary.

"If I get my hands on that office," he says, "they better find another state to reside in, because I'm going to take their whole system down."

The former auditor general - once a Democrat, now an independent hopeful for the state's top law-enforcement job - launched his campaign in February with a promise to dismantle what he described as Pennsylvania's "corrupt attorney class."

Now, a week after withdrawing his name from the Democratic primary ballot, the colorful lawyer alleges that a cabal of politically connected judges and law firms out destroy him professionally have set their sights his political career.

If it all sounds a bit far-fetched, get used to it, Bailey's critics say. This type of conspiracy-minded talk that has characterized his legal career for years.

"His accusations are beyond slanderous," said Cliff Levine, a Pittsburgh attorney representing three central Pennsylvania Democrats who challenged Bailey's spot on their party's ballot in a lawsuit last week.

Levine's clients questioned signatures on Bailey's nominating petitions in an attempt to have him tossed.

All are supporters of Patrick Murphy, the former Bucks County congressman who is also seeking the job. They mounted their court case under advice from Murphy's campaign, said Levine.

"They just thought that a one-on-one race (between Murphy and former Lackawanna County prosecutor Kathleen Kane) would place him in a better position to eventually become attorney general," Levine said.

But rather than fight their claims, Bailey dropped out. Where others saw only sharp-elbowed Pennsylvania politics, he saw something nefarious.

Each of Levine's plaintiffs has ties to powerful state interests who have crossed him in court, Bailey contends.

One plaintiff, Harrisburg lobbyist Monica Kline, is the sister of a judge whom Bailey once accused in a suit of tampering with court transcripts. That claim was dismissed.

Another plaintiff, Dennis Balbac, is Kline's husband and a Lebanon County Democratic Committee member.

Still another is Sean Miller, who runs the office of development and alumni relations at Pennsylvania State University's honors college - and about whom Bailey has even more blame to throw around.

Bailey maintains Miller's role in the effort to boot him from the ballot shows how desperate Penn State is to silence accusers of former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky - including one Bailey says he represents.

"I've become an earmarked enemy of the entire legal system in Pennsylvania," Bailey said in an interview. "But I'm not going to quiet down."

While Bailey's latest claims have rankled his political foes, even his supporters have come to expect as much from a man who built his law practice as - his words - an "equal-opportunity suer."

Once considered a rising Democratic star, Bailey represented Westmoreland County in Congress in the late 1970s before his election in 1984 as state auditor general.

Since losing that job in 1992, he has focused on filing dozens of suits each year on behalf of whistleblowers alleging government corruption.

But his penchant for being quick to sue has become a topic for grousing around courthouses. Bailey maintains several judges have ruled against his clients because of their personal dislike for him.

Last year, he was nearly disbarred after filing a suit accusing seven federal judges of conspiring against him.

And just last week - in a ruling against a Bailey client - a federal judge in Harrisburg bemoaned the fact that the experience had not dulled Bailey's penchant for finding perfidy in every shadow.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Martin C. Carlson lamented that he was compelled "once again, to consider the unfortunate professional trajectory of plaintiff's counsel and . . . reflect upon the recurring, and wholly regrettable, themes that now mark his practice."

Still, he persists. On a live call-in show Tuesday night on the Pennsylvania Cable Network, an often red-faced Bailey railed against the powers that be, including "an entrenched judiciary who make most of the decisions that affect your daily life."

Bailey acknowledges he faces an uphill battle if he continues his attorney general bid.

Though he secured 1,000 signatures to get on the Democratic primary ballot, he needs more than 20 times that to be included as an independent on Election Day.

He will also need millions of dollars to match Republican candidate David Freed, the Cumberland County district attorney, and whoever wins the Democratic nod.

But when has Bailey ever blinked at the prospect of facing large organizations looking to take him down?

"They're after my hide," he told PCN viewers. "If they get me, they get me. But until the day they die they are going to remember the fight I'm going to give them."