R News has a story and video posted at its site. The video features Kuhl turning his back and walking away when the reporter tries to ask a follow-up question on Iraq, and the main clip from the meeting shows Kuhl refusing to answer questions. The piece is classic bad PR, made all the worse because it's mostly self-inflicted. The good news for Kuhl is that R News is a cable-only channel in Rochester, viewed by only a small percentage of the 29th's constituents.
If this morning's town meeting in Henrietta is an indicator, Randy Kuhl should lay in a supply of whatever over-the-counter medicine is indicated for immense pains in the ass. A lot of heat, and little light, was generated during the 80 or so minutes he spent on one of the first stops of his yearly 145-town listening tour.
The main topic on constituents' minds was Iraq. Of the twenty or so questions asked, well over half had to do with the war. One MoveOn.org representative delivered 150 letters to Kuhl from other 29th residents. Others held up signs with slogans like "You Backed Bush's Lie, Our Children Die". Singing of "Give Peace a Chance" wasn't evident, though grumbling and the threat of spontaneous outbreak of chants were omnipresent.
Kuhl calls these meetings "opportunities to listen." He says he's there to hear what his constituents have to say, not to argue or debate. At times, the full house at Henrietta Town Hall chafed visibly under that stricture, demanding that Kuhl justify his vote on the Iraq resolution. Kuhl stuck to his guns, saying that constituents who wanted to hear his explanations could correspond with him or schedule one-on-one meetings with him.
In coming posts, I'll deal with some of the specific issues raised at the meeting, but for now I'd like to comment on tactics.
Kuhl's treatment of these meetings as "one way" communication is an interesting gambit. For some of the more inflammatory questions, he flatly refused to respond to the questioner. Though he sometimes sounded like an Adlerian therapist ("How does that make you feel?"), the technique was pretty effective. After the first question on Iraq, Kuhl asked the speaker what that person thought should be done. The response was much less impassioned or certain than that person's earlier condemnation of the war. Kuhl caught this person flat-footed, because it is easy to complain about the war but it's harder to articulate an exit strategy.
I haven't attended any of Kuhl's other town hall meetings, but I have attended those of other Members, and Kuhl's refusal to answer questions is overly restrictive and sometimes verged on downright silly. In his defense, town hall meetings like these can easily devolve into debates that go nowhere, so a lot of structure is needed to make them effective. Nevertheless, Kuhl's holding the reins way too too tight. There needs to be a little give-and-take, or these meetings will become a charade. It's telling that Kuhl didn't even follow his own rule, since he answered some questions on less controversial topics, such as whether he co-sponsored a bill or his opinion on supporting VA hospitals.
What's lacking from Kuhl's listen-only position is a good alternative for constituents who want a more in-depth explanation of his views. Kuhl's stated alternative -- write me or meet with me and I'll tell you -- doesn't scale very well. He needs to come up with a better alternative to explain his votes on key legislation. It could be something as simple as a few more press releases or a couple of position papers posted to his website. If he did that before the next set of meetings, he could at least point to those instead of stonewalling.
Though it was probably little appreciated by some in the audience, Kuhl kept his good humor. He wasn't flustered and he wasn't rude, in sharp contrast to those who used the occasion to indulge in a little hamfisted political theater. I don't know if the people holding up protest signs were MoveOn members (I suspect they were), but no matter: they were a rude distraction that subtracted from the quality of the event.
The question I have for any MoveOn members who might be reading this blog is simple: Are you out for self-gratification, or do you want to win over Kuhl/undecided voters? If it's the latter, which I often doubt, then your tactics aren't getting the job done. Delivering letters en masse and holding up hand-lettered signs for the TV camera (that's right, just one, and it was only RNews) have little or no impact on the 3,000 voters you need to swing, or the thousands of non-voters you need to get to the polls. Those people aren't at town hall meetings, and they probably aren't paying attention to the anemic media coverage of these meetings. But they are looking for a reasoned, calmly-stated position on Iraq that doesn't talk about killing our children or involve hand-lettered, asinine slogans. That's not because the death of young people in this war isn't a worthy topic, but rather that it's all too well-known, and dwelling on it doesn't advance the conversation.
Of the behavior and discourse I saw at that meeting, by far the most intelligent and reasonable was that provided by Randy Kuhl and some of the participants who weren't obviously part of the MoveOn delegation. Some of the least persuasive and poorly phrased was provided by the stirred-up and righteous MoveOn group. When Kuhl did engage the MoveOn group, their responses were weak. I'm going to devote a future post on just one of the balls that was dropped, but there were many.
Also, the grumbling and cheap shots from the audience were distracting and sometimes offensive. For example, when a young man from Henrietta stood up and announced that he's joining the service with plans to go to Iraq, one of the people near me muttered "yeah, to die". If your righteousness burns in your heart with the glow of a thousand suns, so strongly that you aren't able to shut up for the short moment it takes for a brave young man say his piece, then you are no different from the "wingnuts" that you choose to hate. You are a zealot, and zealots do nothing but damage the political discourse, no matter which side they're on.
The 29th has been damaged enough by the completely tone-deaf politics of MoveOn. Part of the reason that Eric Massa lost the last election was the lazy, sloppy and expensive MoveOn ad that allowed Kuhl to put him on the defensive. The sloppiness of that ad was symptomatic of the general feeling I got this morning from the MoveOn group: We're so fucking right that we don't need to do our homework.
Well, guess what? Kuhl does his and he outfoxed you today.
Eric Massa has announced that he's officially forming an exploratory committee for a 2008 run.
Update:The Star-Gazette has expanded their story, and WETM reports that Massa's official announcement will come next Sunday.
H R 800 allows a workplace to become unionized without an election if a majority of workers sign up for the union. Though Randy Kuhl was initially one of the co-sponsors of this bill in the previous Congress, he withdrew his support six days after the election, sending a clear message to unions who endorsed his opponent. Today, Kuhl amplified that message by voting against the bill.
Kuhl was one of the few Republicans from the region who voted against this bill. The list of the thirteen GOP members who joined with the Democratic majority reads like a Whos-Who of vulnerable Northeast Republicans.
This vote probably indicates that Kuhl has given up hope of winning over labor during this election cycle. The 2006 campaign demonstrated that labor will support a credible Democratic opponent despite Kuhl's generally labor-friendly record. Since Kuhl has nothing to gain by courting labor, and much of his base is hostile to unions, he chose to buck the trend among his regional colleagues and vote against the bill.