This morning's Massa press conference concentrated on Randy
Kuhl's radio ad.
Massa began the call by pointing to Louise Slaughter's op-ed in
today's Democrat and Chronicle, which he believed made a good case
that drilling isn't the only answer to high gas prices.
The campaign season is heating up. We are 83 days and 11
hours from the election, and already in his first time out of the box,
Randy Kuhl is simply not telling the truth. He is running radio ads
in which he makes the statement that Randy Kuhl is the only candidate
who supports drilling for our energy needs now. That is simply
untrue.
In our first media buy, I made the decision to run a
positive campaign. In Randy Kuhl's first buy, he made the decision to
not tell the truth. In virtually every newspaper in the district,
I've been talking about responsible drilling.
Massa listed off 11 articles where his energy policy has been
discussed, and noted that his energy plan has been posted publicly on
his web site. "Every news organization in this Congressional District
knows the truth. I call for today for Randy Kuhl to take down his
dishonest and untrue radio ad."
Massa said that Kuhl has refused to debate him on substantive issues,
and called his DC appearance "grandstanding and gaming instead of
looking for solutions." Noting that today's Corning Leader carried an
government report estimating that offshore drilling will increase
production by 1% by 2030, he added "It's a great disservice to voters
of this district to knowingly tell them things that are not true."
I asked Massa if he felt that Kuhl's strategy was to get him to react,
to knock him back on his heels.
I don't feel like I'm on my heels. Their strategy
illustrates the reason that there will be a landslide in this
country. Americans are tired of the same Washington politics as
usual.
Massa called Kuhl's current strategy an Orwellian "big lie": Create
a big lie, propagate it as much as possible, and enough people will
believe you so you can squeak by at the polls.
Massa believes this strategy will backfire: "Nothing is clearer than
in 27 days in a row, the price of gas has gone down, and the value of
the dollar has increased." The issue is Bush's failed economic
policies, not drilling, he said.
Comments
"Massa began the call by pointing to Louise Slaughter's op-ed in
today's Democrat and Chronicle, which he believed made a good case
that drilling isn't the only answer to high gas prices."
Has anyone, even Randy, said that drilling is the only answer?
That's my interpretation of what Massa said. Don't recall if he said those exact words. (I was late on the call and wasn't taking notes yet.) The jist of it is that there's more than drilling.
That said, the tagline for Kuhl's new ad is "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less". Kuhl's ad also says that "When Congress had a chance to lower gas prices, the Democrats in charge went on vacation." superimposed on a picture of Nancy Pelosi, which I assume is a reference to not bringing a drilling bill to the floor.
So, Kuhl's pushing the drilling line far harder than any other part of his energy proposal, and someone watching his ad would be hard pressed to figure out what else he thinks we ought to do about energy.
From time to time my dentist has told me that drilling is the only answer :)