The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

This morning's Massa press conference featured more information on Massa's plan for "direct opportunity education", as well as a few more comments about a lawyer, a gun and some money.

Let's begin with the lawyer and the gun. Massa noted that he returned from the Yearly Kos convention to a "changed dynamic" -- an election without a primary challenger -- which will allow him to focus on Randy Kuhl. He re-iterated his concern with the Kuhl concealed weapon story, and remarked that "a man's words are a window to his soul".

Turning to the money, Massa mentioned an op/ed in the Buffalo News that criticized the threatened Bush veto of the Children's Health and Medicare Act. He widened his critique to characterize Kuhl's votes against bills with Kuhl-sponsored earmarks in them as "votes against himself." "When a Member of Congress publicizes earmarks and then votes against them, and continues to do business as usual, that's not leadership - that's pandering."

Massa also mentioned Kuhl's charge that Massa is a "professional politician." Massa said, "that's almost laughable coming from Randy Kuhl, who has been in Albany and in Congress for 24 years."

Massa then turned to the main topic of his press conference, "how a Member of Congress can help build the economy in a local area." Massa said it's a combination of "what you don't do and what you do."

What you don't do, according to Massa, is:

You don't vote for increased, open door, burn down the barn, free trade agreements. Randy Kuhl cast the deciding vote on CAFTA. He said it would bring jobs to 29th Congressional District. I have not been able to identify a single job that's been brought to the district by CAFTA. I will not support continued outsourcing of American employment, both manufacturing and agricultural [...] I believe in fair trade, not free trade: free is free to everyone but us.

Massa's take on what should be done is, according to him, "straightforward, and, like many successful things, we have an operational model for that in the US military." Massa used the example of the Naval Academy. When he attended, he committed to five years of service, so the Navy was able to schedule him for the next five years. He said that the same kind of predictability in the workforce would help local corporations "track a highly educated workforce." The only requirement for local corporations would be to "partner with local educational institutions to provide scholarship opportunities."

Massa said that this was something Congress can do, and can be expanded to all levels of the economy and all educational levels, including BOCES. He used the Raleigh-Durham area as an example of another area of the country that had figured this out.

I asked Massa a couple of questions about his plan. He didn't have a dollar figure in mind, though he was talking with local Chambers of Commerce and others familiar with the employment situation to gather some basic data. He saw his role as first to articulate the opportunity. Since he mentioned Bausch & Lomb, I also asked if he was considering involving David Nachbar in the plan. He said he'd asked Nachbar to serve as his honorary Monroe County Campaign Chair and the door was open to his input.

The other person on the call, Carol, was from the labor federation, so Massa mentioned his recent appearance at the Dresser-Rand strike rally in Painted Post. Massa said the strike "didn't have to happen" if "management had negotiated in any degree of good faith".