The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

The Elmira Star-Gazette and Rochester Democrat and Chronicle report on court documents filed by the Massa campaign in an employment dispute with their fired former campaign manager.  One of the accusations against Sanford Dickert, who was dismissed in June, is that he invited teenage boys to his apartment, gave them alcohol and hard liquor, and invited a 16-year-old boy to stay the night.

Massa says that he did not know of any of these things until Dickert was dismissed.  Affadavits filed in the case include a number of accusations of against Dickert, including lying on his resume, soliciting donations contrary to campaign finance laws, and distributing literature that did not represent Massa's true positions.  Dickert was hired in April and fired June 13.

Reader Rich points out Bob Lonsberry's column, in which Bob clarifies by quoting some of the documents filed.  First, the other teenage boys were college-age employees of the Massa campaign, one of whom says that the alcohol was purchased by another 25-year-old campaign worker for her personal use.  So I assume "teenage" in that case means 18 or 19. Lonsberry's reading of the filings says that it was Massa's 16-year-old son whom Dickert asked to spend the night.

Lonsberry tries to spin the differences in the affidavits into perjury on Massa's part, and likens the whole case to the page scandal.

The perjury claim is far-out.  Employment disputes often devolve into he-said/she-saids, and having different perspectives on the performance of a fired employee does not mean that someone's lying.  Also, the affidavit from which Lonsberry quotes is by a student at Cooper Union, where Dickert is an adjunct professor (according to his personal web page).  An employment arbitration proceeding would presumably go further into the details of what relationship, if any, exists between Dickert and the student.

As for the "teenagers" and alcohol,  Lonsberry claims that the Massa campaign has a special duty towards them, because they were "like pages".  I don't think that's true.  If they're all college-age (pages aren't), then they are adults, and can be treated as such.  If the campaign manager procured liquor for them, he should be fired, and he was.  If Massa had called the cops, then  the students would be in trouble for the actions of an irresponsible employee.  This is an area where discretion should be exercised, and it sounds like it was.

The revelation that the 16-year-old was Massa's son puts a whole new spin on the facts of the story.  If Massa's son was the only person at that party under the age of consent, and Massa has heard the whole story of the party from his boy, we have to assume nothing that happened there was worth calling the cops about.  Frankly, if I were Massa's 16-year-old son, I'd be a hell of a lot more scared of Eric Massa than the Corning PD.

The real scandal here would have been Massa paying the guy to go away.  That didn't happen.  But so close to the election, who knows what will develop out of this.

Tight races are decided by the most fickle and least informed voters: last-minute undecideds.  In the 29th, both candidates are using every technique at their disposal to close with voters who haven't been paying attention until now.

Yesterday and today's Democrat and Chronicle has a couple of round-up stories that detail efforts to sway undecideds.  One of the important points made in today's story concerns the marginal value of additional spending.  At some point, additional money spent on advertising doesn't work.  But neither campaign knows if they've reached that point.  So they just keep spending.

The marginal value of advertising is especially questionable in the Northern 29th.  The Rochester media market has three close Congressional races along with the legislative and judicial contests.  Almost every ad during local programming (like the news) is a political advertisement.  Ads for the 29th are probably drowned out in the overall din of political ads.

The Kuhl campaign is trying to fill the space between the ads -- the local news -- by announcing grants in different parts of the district and hoping for media coverage.  Today, Kuhl will announce grants for Ontario and Monroe county projects.  Last week, he announced grants in Elmira and Corning. 

Lacking the incumbent advantage of announcing pork, the Massa campaign has opted for a more personal approach: touring the district and pressing the flesh. Massa began a week-long tour of the eight counties in the 29th yesterday.