According to Rochesterturning, Randy Kuhl is airing a new ad attacking Eric Massa on Social Security. I'll post a video and a review once I see it. Update: Video after the break.
Ever-alert reader Rich forwards the WROC (Rochester CBS Affiliate) coverage of Eric Massa's press conference on the closing of the acute psychiatric unit at the Canandaigua VA hospital. Massa's sending a letter to someone at the VA, which by itself is not news. What is news is Bob Van Wicklin's dumb response. Let's unpack it:
Our opponent is being highly irresponsible to suggest that services at the Canandaigua VA will be any less that what they are today.
I'd say that faxing a letter to the VA and holding a press conference is probably more futile than irresponsible. More importantly, was WROC being irresponsible last week when they broke the story? How about the D&C?
He's preying on the fears of our veterans.
Generally, "preying on fears" is a charge that sticks when a politician says that some scary event might happen. This event has happened -- what was feared has occurred. You can't "prey" on occurrences.
...the facts are that there will be an increase in services at the Canandaigua VA and it will be designated as a national center of excellence for post-traumatic stress disorder.
As usual with Van Wicklin, once we get past the ad hominem, it is time for the spin. If this is really a fact -- and facts have been sparse in the VA announcements -- it probably doesn't address the issue Massa and the media have raised. If "increase in services" means more sub-acute beds, as I can only imagine it does (or Van Wicklin wouldn't have been so vague), it still doesn't make up for the loss of acute beds. Loss of acute beds is loss of service, period, and all the name-calling and spin in the world won't change that fact.
(Update: A 10/25 D&C story quotes Van Wicklin as saying that Kuhl wanted the VA to wait to close the acute unit until a 22-bed sub-acute unit opens. It's the range of services, not the number of beds, that counts. Also, as Rich wrote to point out, the D&C article says that Kuhl knew about the acute unit closing last week and stayed mum about it. )
In a piece about Amo Houghton's endorsement in the City News Blog, reporter Krestia DeGeorge mentions a Kuhl press release about Massa's fundraiser with "Liberal Tax and Spend" Nancy Pelosi in New York City. DeGeorge wonders if a NYC fundraiser with Pelosi is smart, given the Kuhl campaign's attempt to paint Massa as an "outsider".
My take is that the Pelosi fundraiser will have less detrimental
effect to the Massa campaign than the Vice-President's visit last
month. Like Cheney, Pelosi mainly attracts the ire of base voters who would
never consider switching tickets. Unlike the Cheney visit, Pelosi
is less well-known figure, she's less widely disliked, and her fundraiser in NYC didn't make the Rochester news.
It's worth nothing that Kuhl made no similar fuss when Massa went to New York in August to participate in a fundraiser with Jack Murtha, and Massa didn't make a peep when Republican Majority Leader John Boehner raised funds in Horseheads that same month. Massa raised a ruckus about Cheney because he wanted to keep Iraq front and center. Similary, Kuhl's complaint is tied to his campaign's seemingly single-minded focus on Massa's alleged desire to raise taxes.
Kuhl's press release repeats a claim similar to one he made in the debates, that Massa
will raise taxes with the very first bill he cosponsors, the socialized medicine bill to raise taxes at least $24,000 on the average family in the 29th District.
That $24,000 figure is derived by dividing the total cost of healthcare in the United States by the number of families and calling that number a "tax". Of course, that number doesn't take into account the current cost of health insurance. That cost would disappear under single-payer health care ("socialized medicine"). The cost of single-payer is up in the air, but one thing is certain: it will not cost every family 24,000 additional dollars, or anything close to that number.
This is another walk on the stupid side, and what's galling to me is that there's no need for Kuhl to do it. There are so many other, more reasonable arguments to be made against single-payer health care. But today's talking point is taxes, and everything has to be hammered into that mold.
Regular readers might notice that I don't generally link to or discuss press releases. That's for two reasons. First, most press releases are full of bullshit, no matter who issues them. Second, there's usually an elephant in the room that goes unmentioned. In this case, it's the House leadership. Randy Kuhl wouldn't attend a fundraiser with Denny Hastert in Timbuktu or Alpha Ceti 7, not to mention New York City. The very fact that Massa is willing to fundraise with his party's leadership is the story Kuhl's press release, and City News, ignores.
Today's Rochester D&C has a story on the importance of the war in Iraq to the race in the 29th. The headline ("Iraq becomes albatross for Republican Candidates") pretty much says it all.
The Rural Patriot points out that the National Journal has moved the 29th from 36th to 33rd in its ranking of hot races. The 29th has been steadily inching up in this ranking. The new Cook and Rothenberg ratings released over the weekend reclassified a number of House races, the 29th not among them.
The headline may seem like faint praise (like "Immanuel Kant: Not Dumb" or "Kim Novak: Not Ugly"), but I think it's about the highest compliment I can pay an ad in the current environment.
When Randy Kuhl came out with an ad claiming that "Eric Massa has a plan...to raise taxes", he assumed that everyone listening was stupid. Because who, other than someone who's quite dim, would think that a politician would create a plan to raise taxes? Kuhl might as well have claimed that "Eric Massa has a plan...to turn puppies into hamburger." No sane politician has a plan to raise taxes or slaughter puppies, and any viewer of even minimal intelligence knows it.
Kuhl didn't even bother to use the common "Eric Massa says he won't raise taxes, but..." formulation. That phrasing would have at least assumed that the viewer has an IQ above room temperature, but is easily fooled by the machinations of a clever politician.
Like most negative commericals, Kuhl's was produced with the hope of a two-fer. Not only did he try to tar Massa with a ridiculous claim, he hoped to goad Massa into a negative response. "Randy Kuhl says that I'll raise taxes, but Kuhl's deficit has raised taxes on our children, etc."
Here's where Massa was smart. When your opponent says something hysterical, you can either rise to the same level of hysteria, or you can make a calm, positive assertion that illustrates the stupidity of your opponent's claim. Massa said, "My family is overtaxed and underserved, just like yours." Translation: I know, and you know, that taxes are too high. Raising them would be stupid. Neither of us are that dumb.
Massa's ad opens with "[I] chose to raise my family in upstate New York, just like you." That's a calm, positive rebuttal of the "carpetbagger" accusation that's been floating around. Massa could have chosen to explain why Navy Vets can't call anyplace home, but his one positive sentence is far more powerful, and probably more widely appreciated, than a recitation of his service record.
I also think that the use of Amo Houghton's first-person endorsement by the Kuhl campaign is not stupid, but it's not as clever as Massa's latest ad. We learn that Amo likes Randy, and Randy knows the area. These are Randy's known strengths. It would have been better to use Amo's time to say something positive about one of Randy's perceived weaknesses.
The church I attended as a kid issued two kinds of collection envelopes. There were white ones for every Sunday, and a few brightly colored ones for special occasions. If the bishop, or the starving kids in Africa, needed some extra cash, they'd get it in a mint green or blaze orange envelope from the true believers.
If only it were that easy for politicians. Instead of spending a few cents and getting big bucks in return, the candidates in the 29th have to truck in political celebrities to motivate their core faithful.
The Massa campaign's big name last week was Joseph Wilson, Valerie Plame's husband. Tonight, Massa's in New York City at a fundraiser [pdf] with Nancy Pelosi. Not to be outdone, the Kuhl campaign will take part in an event featuring Laura Bush sometime this week. (Update: The Bush event is a meet-and-greet on 10/28 in Greece, NY with Kuhl, Jim Walsh (NY-25) and Tom Reynolds (NY-26).)
Eric Massa's new TV ad begins with the statement that he
chose to raise my family in upstate New York, just like you. My family is overtaxed and underserved by government, just like yours. It's wrong that professional politicians mismanaged the war, and now our troops are paying the price.
The "professional politicians" line is delivered over a shot of Kuhl and Bush juxtaposed with pictures of Cheney and Rumsfeld. The ad quickly switches to shots of vets and their families:
I believe that we, as a grateful nation, should ensure that our troops, veterans and their families should have what they need. It's time we should do more than just wish for a better life, we should vote for one.
It's interesting (and refreshing) that both candidates have returned to positive ads after fielding negative ones. No YouTube yet - I'll post it when it's available. Video after the break:
The Republican Congressional Campaign Committee (RCCC) has spent $47 million on advertising in Congressional races in the last 6 weeks. Congressional Quarterly has a rundown [pdf] of spending from early September to October 19, and here is today's additional $8 million spent. None of it was spent for Kuhl or against Massa.
The Democrats aren't spending in the 29th, either. At the moment, they've limited their ad buys to an effort to lock in a 15-seat shift in Congress.
Judging from the money trail, Republicans are spending to shore up weak seats, and Kuhl isn't vulnerable enough to trigger an investment. The Democrats are throwing down on turnovers, and the 29th is too big a gamble for them to place a bet. Kuhl and Massa are on their own, and 29th voters have so far been spared from a spate of party-funded negative ads.
The Massa campaign and local bloggers are both upset about the closing of the 8 bed acute psychiatric unit at the Canandaigua VA hospital. Since this same hospital was "saved" a couple of weeks ago, there's good reason to question why services are being cut immediately after salvation was at hand.
That said, every time I hear Vets complain about the closing of a VA hospital, I wonder why they must receive their health care through a parallel, often inferior, and usually inconvenient delivery system. What if we closed every VA hospital and simply gave Veterans an insurance card that allowed them to recieve quality care at any hospital? Why should a Vet who has a psychiatric crisis be forced to travel to Canandaigua (and now Buffalo or Syracuse) for treatment?
I believe Vets should get the best care possible, but the VA system seems like a hold-over that has outlived its usefulness.
Kuhl's spokesman, Bob VanWicklin, spins wildly on the Majority Watch poll:
It's a left-leaning group. I wouldn't call them independent. They're a group that wants to see a Democratic majority in Congress, from what I understand.
Majority Watch is a project of Constituent Dynamics and RT Strategies. Constituent Dynamics is a recently established polling company trying to perfect IVR polls, or robo-polling. RT is a joint project of one Democrat and one Republican. They're the same firm that does polling for independent, well-respected political analyst Charlie Cook. Many have called their polls wrong, nobody's called them biased.
And we don't know anything about the methodology of the poll, other than the little information they gave, so we're sort of skeptical about the questions they may have asked, or how they asked them.
A full discussion of methodology, as well as every question asked in the poll [pdf], is easily accessible on the Majority Watch site. As for how the questions are asked, it's a robo-poll, so every question is asked the same way by a pre-recorded voice.
It doesn't at all compute with any of our internal polling [...] So we'll just sort of discount it.
Finally, after two heaping helpings of bullshit, a little bit of truthful spin. I expect spin from a flack, but Mr. VanWicklin's bull-to-spin ratio is chronically high.
Reader Anne writes to recommend an article about the Working Families Party's GOTV efforts. The WFP has decided to target "blanks" or unaffiliated voters in three Northeast Congressional districts, including the 29th. WFP internal polls show that these voters are receptive to the WFP's progressive message, which includes universal health care and opposition to free trade.
New York is one of the few states where candidates run on multiple party lines. Eric Massa is running on the Working Families Party line as well as the Democratic line.
I'm skeptical that unaffiliated voters, who have shown that they're not committed to the center-left Democrats, will be more receptive to the farther left message of WFP. But GOTV is GOTV, and Massa can use anything he can get. The downside of the WFP effort is that it is all direct mail in the 29th. Direct mail is less effective than the canvassing and phone banks that WFP will use to support candidates in two other districts.
Bob Lonsberry has been attacking Massa's Batiste ad on air and in print. Between the overblown rhetoric (he calls Batiste a "foot soldier for the Nancy Pelosi army"), Lonsberry makes some points that are worth considering. Is Batiste, as Lonsberry claims, a "Democrat shill"? And is his appearance in a Massa ad "baseless mudslinging"?
Lonsberry's whole argument starts with the assumption that Batiste "made" the ad. That's not true. The Massa campaign clearly states that the ad was taken from a radio interview given by Batiste. Batiste hasn't endorsed Massa, and he's not serving as a spokesman for the Massa campaign. Massa is using Batiste's words in his ads because he criticized Massa's opponent.
Whether or not Batiste officially endorses a Democrat, much of what Batiste says is consistent with the Democratic critique of the war in Iraq. Batiste certainly agrees with Democrats when he criticizes the conduct of the war. He thinks that Rumsfeld's war plan allowed the insurgency to grow, and that Rumsfeld should be fired. However, the positive part of his agenda is quite different from Nancy Pelosi's (or Eric Massa's).
First, he's on the record [pdf] on the dire consequences of pulling out of Iraq:
Should we pull out of Iraq on some timeline in the future, whatever that turns out to be, without finishing the work that we started, I think the result will be a civil war of some magnitude, which will turn into a regional mess.
Second, he's not shy about asking for a long-term, big commitment in Iraq:
Do we need to revisit a draft or some type of national service?
I think we need to seriously mobilize this country for war. That may include rationing systems to help pay for the war. It may include some kind of national service.
This is going to go on for a long time: 10 years, maybe longer. I don't know. But everything is being treated as if it is business as usual, yet we're spending $1.5 billion a week. We're funding the Army with budget supplements. That means there are no offsets. In reality, we're mortgaging our future.
Neither of these positions are Massa's or Pelosi's. If Batiste is supposed to be a shill, he needs to go back to PR school.
Let's turn to the "baseless mudslinging" charge. Here's how Lonsberry phrases it:
Kuhl's offense is that he went to Iraq and said he was proud of our troops. He went to Iraq and came back and said the GIs said they were completing their missions. For this the John Batiste mud-throwing ad has called him a liar.
Sounds pretty bad, if that's indeed what Kuhl said. It isn't. Kuhl's widely-quoted words were about the overall situation in Iraq, not just the performance of the troops. For example, he said, "I think we'll start to see significant numbers of U.S. troops coming home by the end of this year" and "it really isn't that bad". He no longer repeats those lines, but he still referred to his discussion with General Casey in Iraq during every debate I witnessed.
Lonsberry also says that freshman Congressmen like Kuhl have little influence over the war. That's right, but it's Kuhl himself who tried to create the opposite impression by characterizing his trip as a "fact finding" mission. Why would Kuhl have to gather facts if he's not in a position to act on those facts?
The truth is that Kuhl's went Iraq go gather anecdotes, not find facts. Batiste called him out immediately after the trip because his posturing was so transparent, and so transparently wrong. He did so without any prodding from the Massa campaign. To my knowledge, Batiste has not uttered the word "Massa" in any of his interviews or writings to date.
Lonsberry raises some other important questions in his article, such as what we're to think of generals who quit and then criticize the country's leadership during time of war. He refers to Batiste as "Little Mac", a comparison to George McClellan, the ineffective Civil War general who ran for president.
The McClellan comparison is clever but wrong. McClellan was relieved of command. Batiste would have been promoted if he hadn't retired. After being relieved of command, McClellan remained in the Army and wrote a self-justifying report lauding his actions and criticizing the Lincoln administration. Batiste's words and actions before his retirement were scrupulously loyal -- he held his tongue until he retired. McClellan ran for President in 1864 while still a General, resigning his commission on election day. Batiste isn't running for office, doesn't endorse candidates, and works full-time at Klein Steel.
Batiste was in a position with no good choices. To remain in the Army and criticize the war from the inside would be disloyal and disruptive. Quitting and criticizing the war leaves him open to charges of disloyalty and questions about why he didn't change things from the inside. He chose the latter course, and Lonsberry gives him harsh treatment for doing so.
While I agree with Lonsberry that merely having held a high rank doesn't give Batiste special privileges in a political debate, I don't think that Lonsberry has made the case that Batiste is a political shill. Batiste's words might have political consequences, but there's no evidence that his motivations are partisan.