Jared Smith from the Massa Campaign sends the
Hornell Evening Tribune's story [pdf] on a NRCC press release, which appeared only in the paper edition.
The substance of the NRCC release is that Massa hasn't taken a position on the failure of Congress to pass the extension to the Protect America Act (PAA). I covered that whole issue in a
post last week. The majority of Democrats voted for a 21-day extension of the act, while every Republican voted against it. Yet the NRCC wants to paint the Democrats as the instigators of PAA expiration.
The NRCC also throws in a few licks about Massa's fundraising. They think it's bad for Massa to get money from fellow Democrats and trial lawyers. Randy Kuhl's "me, too" on that particular claim is intentionally misleading:
"If he is going to continue to claim that he does not accept donations from political interest organizations then I would expect him to return the money," Kuhl said.
Massa's position, as Kuhl well knows, is that he won't accept money from corporate PACs. Kuhl can argue whether that's a meaningful thing for Massa to pledge, but it's dishonest to intimate that he hasn't kept his pledge.
Overall, the Republican spin on the PAA has struck me as remarkably weak and ineffective. I assume the Massa campaign thinks so, too, otherwise they wouldn't have sent a story pegged on a NRCC critique of their candidate.