Exile of Rochesterturning reports on his conversations with regional Democratic leaders about the Nachbar candidacy. He believes that Louise Slaughter will not officially endorse Nachbar for the 2008 race, and that most of the town and county Democratic committees will publicly support Massa. My sources aren't as numerous as Exile's, but a source that I trust has also reported that Slaughter will not endorse Nachbar this time around.
Exile mentions that he started getting DCCC press releases around the time of Nachbar's announcement, and speculates whether Nachbar is their candidate, since he's using a PR firm with ties to Rahm Emmanuel, the DCCC chair. I don't know about the PR firm, but I've also been receiving those press releases, which are formulaic, low-quality efforts.
Since the issue of Veterans' health care was an important issue in the last election, some readers might be interested in a (relatively) new blog, Wounded Warriors. This blog is maintained by the McClatchy (formerly Knight-RIdder) Newspaper chain, and it aggregates news from their wires as well as other sources.
Last week, McClatchy broke a story about the exaggeration of claims by the VA. They have also been instrumental in investigations of the Gonzales affair as well as being the only Washington bureau to doubt claims about WMDs in Iraq. So, at the moment, they're darlings of the left. In reality, they're just good journalists whose customers are a set of papers in the Midwest and South. I'm sure they'll manage to annoy Democrats in the near future, now that the Democrats are running Congress.
Yesterday was an interesting day in the House. The Republicans called for hours of procedural votes, most of which were supported by Randy Kuhl. According to Congressional Quarterly, the reason for the delays was concern on the part of Republicans that Democrats would restrict amendments in the coming debate on the Budget.
Kuhl's support of these procedural votes is consistent with his general voting pattern, which mirrors that of most Republicans. When a major bill is up for consideration, the Republicans usually offer a few amendments and then move to send the bill back to committee. That last motion fails on a party-line vote, and then the bill passes, often with bi-partisan support. The vote for H R 1257 is a good example of this pattern.
My statistics show that Kuhl votes with the majority in about 60% of tight votes on important legislation. There's a hard core of 30-40 Republicans who oppose most important bills, but Kuhl is generally not among that group.
So far this session, Kuhl's voting record, like almost every other Republican, is that of a party loyalist on procedural votes. On other votes, he generally supports most legislation that doesn't hit a hot button like Iraq, stem cells, or the rights of corporations. He's a moderate-to-conservative Republican, pretty much as advertised.
A reader who has some access to media buy figures in the 29th wrote to question the effectiveness of third-party media campaigns in the district. Pointing out that the most recent campaign will air 250 ads this week in Rochester, and none in Corning or Elmira, this reader argues that the ads end up being a "media splash" that won't really make an effective impression on area residents.
Though I wasn't able to independently confirm those numbers, the publicly-available information on April's anti-war ad indicates that the initial buy for that campaign was even smaller: 120 ads. These are $10-20K buys, far less than the hundreds of thousands spent for the seemingly constant ads we saw during the last election.
Since these ad campaigns are small, I think two conclusions can be drawn from the attention they've been given in blogs and in the mainstream media of the 29th. The first is that this reader is right: the media splash accompanying the ad campaigns is probably seen by more people than the ads themselves. This is especially true for the most recent ads, because Batiste's firing from CBS news gave the story a second day of life. The second conclusion is that the ads probably won't significantly impact attitudes about the war in the 29th. There just aren't going to be enough eyeballs seeing the ads for them to have a mass effect.
Though the ads themselves won't change attitudes, I think the Batiste story, which stands on its own apart from the ads, is still an important one. Batiste is making a principled stand, and it's hard to dismiss him as either uninformed or a partisan.
The Massa campaign has issued a press release announcing the receipt of an endorsement from the Allegany County Democratic Committee. Allegany is the third-smallest county in the 29th.
Congressional Quarterly has an overview article about the 29th, including recent developments like the Nachbar candidacy.
In a WETM story about worker shortages, Randy Kuhl is quoted as supporting two immigration reform measures. The first is the "Z" Visa, which requires a worker to pay $3,500 for a 3-year work permit. The second is an expansion of the H2-A program, which allows farmers to import temporary workers under a stringent set of conditions intended to ensure that foreign workers aren't taking U.S. workers' jobs.
Unlike the AgJobs bill, which he cosponsors and is preferred by the Agriculture industry, the Z-Visa and H2-A programs don't provide a path to citizenship. However, AgJobs has not cleared committee, so the Z-Visa or H2-A expansion might be the best compromise that will come out of the current debate on immigration reform.
As expected, Randy Kuhl voted against redeployment from Iraq, and against the short-term emergency supplemental yesterday.
In related news, Maj Gen (Ret) John Batiste was fired from his job as a CBS commentator over his recent ad for VoteVets.org. His day job at Klein Steel is probably still safe, since his boss Joe Klein is no stranger to controversy.
I agree with VoteVets.org claim that Randy Kuhl is "close to breaking with the President on Iraq". But what does that mean?
My take is that Kuhl (and Jim Walsh and a number of other Republicans) will become part of a compromise that will lead to the beginning of a withdrawal after September, or perhaps even earlier. I base this on a pretty basic analysis of the factions in this debate.
There are four broad groups of opinion on Iraq in Congress, which can be roughly characterized as follows:
I don't think this analysis is anything more than conventional wisdom, but notice one thing: group (2) and group (3) merge into one after September. At that point a large majority of Congress will be comfortable supporting deadlines in Iraq. In other words, September is the nominal beginning of the end of the Iraq War.
Randy Kuhl has toned down his war rhetoric lately. His stock response to anti-war ads had contained "white flag" rhetoric. Kuhl's response to the VoteVets ad is a much more sedate, though part of that might be because it's just not a good idea to use surrender rhetoric against a retired general who led troops in combat. No matter, I think that he's going to pivot in September, and I think he'll do so in part because position (3) will become the majority Republican view.
The interesting question is whether (2) and (3) can move closer, sooner. VoteVets is betting that they can change a few minds in the third group, Randy Kuhl among them. Those who argue with VoteVets' timing probably believe that the surge should be given time to accomplish its salvage mission. Those who think VoteVets are on-track probably believe that the surge is more of the same solution that hasn't worked before.
I think that the VoteVets ads are worth a try. Though the Septemberists' strategy is internally consistent, it's hard to maintain in the face of continuing bad news from Iraq coupled with evidence of strain on the Armed Forces at home. Jim Walsh is clearly running scared, and for good reason: defending an arbitrary deadline is brutal business. With the country badly wanting to close this chapter, the urge to hasten the inevitable end will become ever more seductive to politicians who want to keep their jobs.
VoteVets.org has launched a $500K ad campaign featuring retired generals critical of the war in Iraq. Randy Kuhl is one of the legislators targeted by the campaign. The first ad in the campaign, included after the break, is by Maj Gen (Ret) John Batiste. Batiste was highly critical of Kuhl in the 2006 campaign, and Eric Massa used Batiste's remarks in anti-Kuhl ads.
VoteVet's rationale for targeting Kuhl is that he is "very close to breaking with the President on Iraq". The local version of the ad will mention Kuhl's name and end with the tagline "Protect America, Not George Bush".
Rochesterturning calls this "big news". I agree.
During his Thursday press conference, Randy Kuhl claimed that he's in favor of benchmarks in Iraq. As reported here earlier, the benchmark provisions of H R 1591 seem like the least objectionable part of that bill. Those benchmarks put pressure on the Iraqi parliament, which is planning a two-month summer recess even though few of their legislative goals have been accomplished.
So does this mean that Kuhl would support a version of H R 1591 with benchmarks but without withdrawal deadlines? Probably not. The benchmark bill that Kuhl cosponsored, H R 1062, requires the President to report progress in Iraq to Congress. But the bill includes no penalty if the Iraqis don't meet the benchmarks. In contrast, H R 1591 holds back half of Iraqi reconstruction funding until benchmarks are met.
Kuhl claims that "[t]he bill allows us to, if they don't meet the benchmarks, remove [...] support". Since there's no funding language in the bill, I think that claim is a stretch at best, and intentionally misleading at worst.
About halfway through Randy Kuhl's town meeting in Pittsford, the person standing next to me muttered, "Why would someone want to be a Congressman?". I've often wondered that myself, and this afternoon's meeting did nothing to answer that longstanding query.
The setting was the basement of the Pittsford town hall, in the heart of the most affluent suburb in Monroe County (and the district). The players were a SRO crowd of about 60 constituents. Some of them were covered with sheets splattered with fake blood, wearing black bags over their heads and holding anti-war placards. Others were brandishing editorials from the Wall Street Journal. The common denominator was outrage and dissatisfaction: with the government in general, and John R Kuhl, Jr. in particular.
I'd like to give an calm analysis of the interplay of ideas that occurred, but frankly the whole thing was a bit overwhelming. An undercurrent of dissatisfied grumbling would sometimes drown out the speakers. Some participants were critical of Kuhl for not answering their questions, while others cut him off as he attempted to explain his position. Towards the end, there was yelling. It wasn't fit for kids or the elderly, though at least one of the former and many of the latter were present.
I'm not sure that any real conclusion about Kuhl, his constituents, or the 29th can be drawn from this mudfight. Nevertheless, I'll offer a few highlights.
First, the comedy. One constituent began by saying that he had come to make a tougher statement, but since Kuhl was answering questions, he would give a "nice speech". His next sentence: "You have allowed yourself to become a puppet of the Bush Administration." One wonders what he would have said if he weren't making nice.
At a couple of points, Kuhl pointed out that some of the participants had been in other town meetings. One gentleman in particular, who was wearing a red Legion cap, was clearly well-known to Kuhl. He spent at least five minutes berating Kuhl for using the term "assured funding" instead of "mandatory funding" in a letter about the Veterans' Administration. A few minutes earlier, his friend had loudly declaimed that the most important issue facing the country was "bees". Actually, that might be true, and Randy's position on the Agriculture Committee probably gives him some insight on the issue. Unfortunately, the bee man kept cutting Randy off as he tried to answer.
Perhaps the most tragic figure was a dissatisfied Republican who had voted for Republicans all his life, except for the last two elections. He asked why the Republicans didn't have a "bit of courage" to stand up to the Bush Administration. His question was followed by a round of applause from the anti-war contingent, which he waved away, saying he was "talking as a Republican". He, too, didn't get an answer because someone immediately asked another question. He walked out in disgust a few minutes later.
Kuhl's demeanor was a bit different from March's meeting in Henrietta. I missed the first few minutes of this meeting, so perhaps Kuhl had laid down rules about it being a "listening opportunity." Whether or not he's still holding on to that convenient fiction, he seemed more willing to answer questions today. He tried the "I'm here to listen" line a few times, but the crowd was on to him, and they were adamant about demanding answers. Kuhl did give a few answers, and he might have said more had he been given the chance. Some of the answers were on point, and some were full of misdirection, but on the whole he seemed more willing to engage the audience than he did in Henrietta.
The overall impression I got from the meeting was that of people talking past each other. Some hot topics were the Virginia Tech shootings (gun control), Immigration (with the main concern being cutting off illegal immigration), Gonzales, melamine in the food supply and the war in Iraq. On all of those topics, I don't think anyone was satisfied.
Though I'm tempted, I can't really blame Kuhl for not satisfying this group. They came to yell at Kuhl, and Kuhl came to get yelled at. Both sides played their roles, and then, like most well-organized performances, it ended at the appointed time.
This afternoon, Randy Kuhl voted for H R 1592, an anti-Hate Crime bill which he cosponsored. The White House has vowed to veto this bill on the grounds that the bill federalizes and duplicates existing state and local laws. There's also a subtext: some far-right groups oppose this bill on the grounds that it adds homosexuals to the list of those who might be the victims of hate crimes. Kuhl was one of only 25 Republicans to vote for the bill.