Rochester's ABC affiliate has fact-checked the first MoveOn ad. Their take is that the ad contains a number of distortions. I think they're not far from the truth.
The first WHAM claim concerns the statement "What happened to the $300 billion we sent to Iraq. Halliburton got $18 billion. $9 billion is just plain missing."
WHAM calls this "faction" -- all the claims are factually true, but it gives the false impression that the $9 billion came from Halliburton. I think WHAM has a point, but the way the ad is read makes it clear (to me at least) that the 18 and the 9 are separate parts of the 300.
More importantly, WHAM thinks the claim that Kuhl was caught "red-handed" voting for everything is wrong on three counts. First, they point out that the last Halliburton contract was authorized before Kuhl was a member of Congress. Second, they argue that no member votes for individual contracts. Finally, they think the phrase "caught red-handed" implies wrongdoing.
Again, this is a matter of nuance. Though the Halliburton contracts were authorized before Kuhl took office, he voted on continuing appropriations for the war, and voted against stricter contract enforcement. Halliburton is a big part of those continuing appropriations.
It's also true that no member votes for individual contracts, and that cherry-picking tiny pieces of gigantic omnibus appropriations is a tried-and-true method of distorting records. But picking Halliburton as the example of spending in the bill certainly isn't the worst example of cherry picking I've seen. Kuhl is on record strongly supporting the Bush administration's position on Iraq, and that administration picked Halliburton as a key contractor.
I have to agree completely with the WHAM criticism of the "red-handed" portion of the ad. Kuhl hasn't tried to hide his support of the war, and the notion that he's been caught out voting for appropriation bills doesn't hold water.
When I watched the first MoveOn ad, my general reaction was: "So what? Kuhl votes for Iraq appropriations. So do a number of Democrats. End of story. " The issue is that Kuhl's position on Iraq is completely dictated by the Bush administration rather than by his and his constituents' own independent take on the war.
Unfortunately, the practical constraints of a 30-second TV ad dictate much of the MoveOn strategy. They must capture attention and implant an image. A truck dumping money in the desert captures attention. Randy Kuhl with red hands implants the image.
This is the state of politics on television, and we are all the worse for it.
MoveOn has posted the second anti-Kuhl ad it plans to show in the 29th. Titled "Red-Handed Defense", it alleges that Kuhl accepted money from defense contractor PACs and opposed penalties for contractors "at a time when soldiers didn't have enough body armor". It ends with the tagline "Tom Delay, Dick Cheney and now Randy Kuhl, another Republican caught red-handed".
The Gannett News Service reports today that Kuhl will ask the Elmira and Rochester TV stations to pull the MoveOn ads because of "factual errors". The same story calculates the total spend for the ads as $100,000, not $76,000 as was initially reported by the AP.
Though the Elmira Star-Gazette featured the story on their website, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, another Gannett paper, cut the story to three graphs, buried it on page 5B of the print edition, and did not carry it on their site.
In a wire story triggered by the MoveOn ads, Kuhl's over-rosy assessment of his Iraq trip came back to haunt him. Responding to Massa's criticism that Kuhl went to Iraq and returned without any solutions, campaign spokesman Bob Van Wicklin makes the following claim:
"The only person using Iraq as a political issue is this Massa guy," said Van Wicklin. "The fact is that according to Iraq's National Security Advisor, attacks in Iraq are down 45 percent since mid-July."
Because Kuhl came back from Iraq with an unrealistically optimistic take, his staff is now bound to keep pushing a positive line on Iraq. This is at best risky, probably foolishly so, because it continues to expose Kuhl to the charge of naiveté.
Van Wicklin probably got the 45% figure from an interview in which Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, the Iraqi National Security Advisor, claimed that the influx of troops in mid-July caused the overall rate of attacks to fall by 45%, and "extra-judicial murders" to fall by 35%. If al-Rubaie is right, and the trend holds, that's wonderful news.
However, it's simply a fact that July was the bloodiest month on record in Iraq, and that the overall trend in killings for the year has been sharply upward. Disputing that fact with a few cherry-picked quotes that fly in the face of everything else reported in the newspaper is not a winning strategy politically, and it confirms Massa's charge that Kuhl has no solutions.
Randy Kuhl will be one of three incumbent Republican congressmen targeted by MoveOn.org's newest ad campaign. The ad shows a truck dumping money in the desert while the narrator asks what happened to the $300 billion spent in Iraq, and points out that Kuhl has voted for all of the Iraq spending bills. It ends by portraying Kuhl in grainy black-and-white with an airbrushed "red hand".
MoveOn's media buy in the 29th is 700 gross points, which, according to this reference, means that the average television viewer in the district will see the ad seven times. A similar ad will also be aired in New Hampshire's 2nd and New York's 20th districts, which, like the 29th, are also rated "lean Republican" by the Cook Political Report.
MoveOn ran another similar ad in four other districts in June. One of those districts, Indiana's 2nd, was moved from "lean Republican" to "toss up" by Cook in his latest report.
Update: According to the AP, MoveOn is spending $76,000 on those ads in the 29th. That's equal to almost half of the cash Massa had on hand at the end of June.
The Kuhl site has an extensive FAQ section, all of which concerns the details of voting in New York State.
It's impossible to overestimate the importance of this kind of information, especially when it comes to registration and absentee ballots. In my experience with political campaigns, a surprising number of voters are unable to navigate the bureaucracy of voting and therefore don't vote. This is especially true for senior citizens, who are often unable to travel to the polls, yet don't know the mechanics of the absentee process.
In New York State, all voters must register at least 25 days before the election, and absentee ballots must be requested no earlier than 30 days, and no later than 7 days, before the election. This means that the election really starts in October.
Now that the Kuhl campaign has finally finished populating its issues page, Randy's position on the War on Terror no longer links to a void. It also shows that someone in his campaign has learned from the drubbing that it received from General (ret.) Batiste.
Unfortunately for the Kuhl campaign, they've got miles to go before they arrive at a position statement that acknowledges the basic reality of the situation in Iraq.
First, the good news for Randy. His new page does not repeat this breathtaking inanity, which Kuhl uttered shortly after his return from Iraq earlier this month:
Once you get through the apprehension, it really isn't bad. You can almost forget you're in a war zone.
Instead, Randy's official take on his trip is more measured:
I am cautiously optimistic about where we are headed. I was able to meet and speak to some brave men and women from our area that are serving our nation in Iraq and speak with the military commanders about the current outlook for a peaceful end to this long, hard struggle for freedom.
At least this second quote leaves one with the impression that Randy actually traveled to Iraq.
Now, the bad news. His overall position on Iraq is still out of touch with what 29th voters are seeing every day on television, not to mention the recent assessment of respected leaders in his own party. Here's Randy's view:
The new government of Iraq is continuing to make progress, with the Iraqi Security Force due to take over security in all 18 Iraqi provinces by the end of the year, alleviating the burden of the United States and Multinational Forces. The Iraqi Army and police forces’ increased participation has contributed to security and stability, which has, in turn, sustained Iraq's political progress.
Well, that's one man's opinion. Here's another Republican's take on the Iraqi army and police:
...[The Army is] doing a lot better job than they had in the past. The question is, is can they do the job completely, and the answer is no. When American troops are with them, they perform far better than by themselves. There are Iraqi battalions which are excellent, there are some that are poor.
But we—but the real problem is not so much the army as the police. The police have been taken over by militias in many areas of the country, whether it be Basra or others. That, combined with, with an Iranian influence, particularly in the southern region, leads to a very, very difficult situation. And when we move troops from one place to another, it’s not clear and hold, it’s clear and leave. And that never worked...
That was John McCain's speaking yesterday on Meet the Press. A member of McCain's "kitchen cabinet", General (ret.) Barry McCaffrey, who also appeared on that program, was a bit more blunt in his assessment of the Iraqi Army:
Well, first of all, it’s miserably underresourced, which—a shortcoming I’ve articulated over on the Hill now and to the administration. These Iraqi security battalions have 20, 30 light trucks, light automatic weapons. There’s no plan to build a force which would be capable of, of replacing us. So I think our strategy is flawed.
McCain is one of the strongest supporters of the war in Iraq, and McCaffrey has years of experience in command. These are hardly the voices of inexperienced or biased observers, and I'm sure that any 29th voter who heard them yesterday would find Randy's blithe confidence in the Iraqi army and police more than a little hard to swallow.
As for the notion that the increased partcipation of the Iraqi army and police has "contributed to security and stability", let's take a closer look at July's statistics. The month that was just ending during Randy's visit saw the highest civilian death toll since the U.S. invasion. July's roughly 3,500 deaths was a 9% increase over June, double the rate of January, and more than three times the total deaths on both sides of the Israel/Lebanon war.
Randy's prediction of "continued progress" towards "security and stability" in Iraq is an insult to the intelligence of anyone in the 29th who has opened a newspaper or turned on a television in the last month. His Iraq strategy needs a complete overhaul if he's going to have a shred of credibility on this issue.
Eric Massa's latest campaign diary contains an update on debates in the 29th. In a nutshell, nothing's happening.
Since last month's Kuhl press release challenging Massa to a debate at WLEA, a Hornell station with miniscule coverage in the far South of the 29th, even that non-event hasn't been finalized. And a tentative agreement [google cache] between the campaigns for a debate on the more powerful Rochester WHAM has apparently fallen apart.
Judging from Eric's report, Randy is still following the traditional incumbent strategy of avoiding debates with challengers. The WLEA event, if it ever happens, will be a low-risk tactic for Kuhl to avoid the charge that he's afraid to engage.
Today's Washington Post has a front-page story about the effectiveness of Democratic fundraising in contested congressional elections. Challengers in general are doing much better this year than in '04. This pattern is true in the 29th, where Eric Massa has so far raised almost 80% of what Kuhl's last challenger, Sam Barend, collected during her entire campaign.
The Post story is based on second-quarter fundraising reports. Kuhl and Massa have both held major fundraising events this quarter, but we won't know how they're doing until the FEC third-quarter pre-primary reports are released, sometime after the October 15 deadline August 31 filing date (fixed - thanks to Massaman).
Eric Massa was quoted in a syndicated story about John Murtha's surge of popularity. According to Massa, Murtha received a racous standing "O" at a funraiser for Massa in New York City on August 9.
Murtha has been appearing at fundraisers and will go on the road after Labor Day for "four dozen" Democratic candidates. There's no news yet on a visit to the 29th.
Massa has been actively supporting Murtha, most recently by traveling to Pennsylvania to speak out against an attempted "swiftboating" campaign. Judging from Murtha's willingness to travel widely outside of his district before election day, that campaign hasn't gotten any traction.
Unlike John R "Randy" Kuhl Jr, Eric Massa hasn't had to vote on any of the hot button issues. None of them are listed on issues web page, which has in-depth discussions of his positions on national security, the economy, health care and immigration. Other than stem cells, which the Massa campaign is clearly going to make a centerpiece issue of the election, the hot buttons also aren't much in evidence on the Massa campaign's blog pages.
Even though, like Kuhl, Massa's positions on the hot buttons aren't plastered all over his web page, he does have clear positions on all of these issues. All I had to do was ask.
Let's start with what might be his most interesting position: gun control. Massa's position, as relayed by spokesman Mike Williams, is:
Eric is not in favor of any additional federal gun control legislation at this time. [emphasis in original] On the other hand, Eric recognizes that there are times when interpretation is necessary. He is philosophically unconvinced that average citizens have a right to bear assault weapons. He is a major proponent of gun safety, responsible gun ownership, and enforcement of existing regulations.
This position is essentially consistent with Kuhl's and probably also with the majority of voters in the 29th. It also shows that Massa is smart about running in this district. Gun control just isn't on the radar. The schools and towns in the 29th aren't full of gun violence, but the countryside is full of hunters during hunting season.
On abortion, according to Mike, Massa's stance is:
Eric believes that abortion is a private medical matter, and that a woman's right to choose is primary. He also believes that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare, and he is in favor of social and political measures targeted towards reducing abortion.
Eric is pro-choice and in favor of funding stem cell research.
I'd characterize this position as a carefully phrased, middle-of-the-road Democratic take on abortion. Hillary's "safe, legal and rare" formulation is good shorthand for the more prolix agnonizing over moral conflicts that used to characterize candidate statements about this volatile issue. There's nothing radical here, and much left unsaid. For example, public funding of abortion is not mentioned.
Will single-issue right-to-life voters vote against Massa? Yes. Will voters who are right-to-life but not single-issue voters reject Massa solely because of his abortion stand? I dunno, but I don't see how Massa could phrase his position any better to get their vote. That's about the best a pro-choice politician can hope for with this highly polarized issue.
Finally, on gay rights, since Massa has recenty retired from a long military career, I asked about gays in the military and the gay marriage amendment:
Eric says: I know from personal experience in the military that the current policy, "don't ask, don't tell," doesn't work. I fully support civil unions and equal legal rights for all Americans. Although civil unions do not provide all of the answers for the issues facing same sex couples, I believe they are a good start, and I support them.
I do not support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning gay marriage; that is a wedge issue and a political ploy designed to distract voters from the massive failures of the Bush administration and Congress; it would also be the first amendment in our country's history to explicitly restrict rights.
This position is interesting for two reasons. First, Massa's experience in the military puts him in a good position to judge a policy that I'm guessing Randy Kuhl supports. The "don't ask, don't tell" policy has arguably hurt rather than helped national security, so this is a civil rights and a national security issue. Second, the civil union compromise position is another middle-of-the-road position. "Marriage" is a touchy word, and Massa's smart to keep it out of the positive part of his position. Kuhl's vote for the amendment to ban gay marriage is probably one step too far even for some of those who oppose gay marriage, and Massa's position allows him to decry the anti-libertarian nature Kuhl's stance without explictly supporting gay marriage.
Of course, Massa will be opposed by those who have an anti-homosexual agenda, but my guess is that voters who are single-issue on gay rights are going to be turned off by a number of other Massa positions.
Overall, Massa's approach to the hot buttons is measured and center-right (gun control) or center-left (abortion and gay marriage). They are the positions of someone trying to capture the center-right, middle and left of a district where almost one quarter of the voters are registered Independent or have no party affiliation.
(Thanks to Mike Williams for promptly answering my questions on Massa's positions. I'm sure he had better things to do.)
Eric Massa's stem cell press conference was an interesting example of the difficulty of penetrating the Rochester media market. Massa's press conference was held at 10:30 a.m., which early enough to make the 6 o'clock news. However, it didn't make any of the three major network newscasts that evening. (I watched one and recorded two.) It might have made the one-hour pre-news newscasts, but it wasn't a "top story" for the day.
Since Rochester sits at the confluence of four congressional districts, a Member of Congress has to do something special to make the evening news. During the 6 o'clock newscasts, ads for the well-financed fight in the 26th district were the only time congressional candidates from any district were mentioned. The other political ads were utilized by Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Spitzer to help cement their 60+% leads, proving yet again that you can never be too rich, too thin, or win too big.
Since at least half of the registered voters in the 29th live in the Rochester media market, getting on the tube is important to both candidates. Judging from this media event, it will take more than a press release and a news conference.