Tuesday's meeting on high-speed rail is still getting some press coverage. WGRZ in Buffalo had a train story in last night's broadcast.
The only high-speed rail line running on standard tracks in the US is Amtrak's Acela Express. Reading through the Wikipedia entry for that train, a few facts stand out:
Reader Tom sends this Politico story. According to Politico, Republicans have given up on painting horns and a tail on Nancy Pelosi, and are focusing instead directly on President Obama.
The D&C covers a meeting between the upstate delgation and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on high-speed rail. Eric Massa is quoted in the article.
Buffalo Pundit's take on high-speed rail notes that the Rochester-Buffalo-Toronto route makes more sense than Buffalo-Albany. He envisions a "megaregion" where high-speed rail makes commuting between the cities a possibility.
Update: The Buffalo News also has a piece on the LaHood meeting.
Eric Massa seems to be learning about the difference between candidate and Congressman the hard way. When you're a candidate, the media's attention is divided between you and your opponent, and your opponent's supporters must concentrate on supporting him as well as attacking you.
As soon as the election's over, being the Congressman means that all attention is on you, for good or ill. Issues that might have escaped notice when you were a candidate will inevitably be discovered by local media or the other party.
The only viable strategy to deal with this reality is to get out in front of controversial news. When the media hears it first from one of your press releases, at least they don't think you're trying to hide something. And, more importantly, the first thing they internalize is your spin on the facts.
The Allen Stanford contribution is a good example. In general, making a big deal of old contributions from newly-outed crooks is a stupid ritual. That said, when the donation comes from a banker/swindler in the midst of a banking crisis, it's a ritual best initiated by the politician who took the money.
Charlie Rangel understands this, and he reported his intention to return donations from Stanford more than a week ago. Massa could have sent out a release indicating that he, too, planned to do the right thing after consulting with his lawyers. Now, as was the case with his decision to take corporate donations, it looks like he was trying to hide something.
Reader Stanley writes to point out that Eric Massa's October financial statement has a $2550 donation from Allen Stanford, the billionaire bank owner who is accused of running a Ponzi scheme.
Stanford's donation was channeled to the Massa campaign via Charlie Rangel [NY-12], who announced last week that he's donating $10,800 (the amount of Stanford's donations) to charity.
I have a request for comment in to the Massa press operation and will publish it when I get it. Here's the word from Massa's Communications Director, Jared Smith:
Last week, we received a notice from a court appointed authority informing us that the case against Mr. Stanford was developing. In that Rep. Massa did not want to return the contribution to someone that would likely not return it to his investors, and since we do not yet know the legality of giving it to charity or turning the money over to a court receiver, Rep. Massa sent the notification letter to the legal authorities at the Democratic National Committee to see what the legal options are. Because the books are long closed on the FEC's 2008 3rd quarter filing, Rep. Massa has been very careful to ensure that everything is done correctly. Rep. Massa will act upon the recommendation of the DNC authorities. He also mentioned that this is yet another reason why America needs Clean Money/Clean Elections reforms. In our current campaign finance system, this sort of thing can happen to anyone and then the campaign bears the burden of unraveling someone else's mess.
The Messenger-Post has an editorial about the "new direction" in the 29th district.
The Washington Times uses Eric Massa as an example of a new Representative using cost-cutting measures. Massa has installed videoconferencing equipment so he have virtual meetings without traveling.
The American Prospect has a piece about netroots darling Darcy Burner. Burner lost the WA-8 race in '06 and '08 by almost identical margins, even though she received large donations from Act Blue, the netroots donation aggregator, and was mentioned constantly on the big netroots blogs.
Burner's race is an good study for those interested in the NY-29 race. WA-8 has a PVI of D+2, compared to NY-29's R+5, so Burner should have had an easier win than Massa.
Reading the piece, it's clear that Burner lost for three reasons:
1. She had a better opponent.
According to the Prospect, Burner's opponent, Dave Reichert, was able to escape being painted as a Bush loyalist:
Against Burner, Reichert ran toward the center. He distanced himself from George W. Bush, touted his (limited) bipartisan accomplishments, and plugged his efforts to help restructure the Federal Emergency Management Agency after its failures during Hurricane Katrina.
In the 2008 race, Randy Kuhl was closely tied to Bush, and had no independent accomplishments to tout.
2. She was perceived as being too far under the netroots' thumb.
Burner's campaign had to walk back this reasonable comment from a campaign spokesman after some influential netroots sites complained:
"[The netroots are] not at the point yet where they can really swing a race. Part of my job is making sure people know the blogosphere is not the campaign."
The Burner campaign didn't fire that spokesman, as was demanded by bloggers, but they did distance themselves from his statement. Their quick reaction to netroots criticism, and the differences between Burner's online and real-world rhetoric, caused the local press to make her netroots affiliations an issue.
One of the guiding principles of netroots activism is that electing a conservative Democrat in a Republican district is a win, but Democrats in districts that "ought to be Democratic" should be outspoken progressives. This allowed Eric Massa to collect netroots donations without being called to task for some of his conservative positions.
The notion that a D+2 district "ought to be Democratic" is probably at the root of this whole problem. A strong Republican incumbent can often beat a Democrat in a district that just leans slightly Democratic.
3. She was the target of an effective smear campaign.
Burner's slight mis-statement about her Harvard degree was spun into a major issue by the Reichert campaign.
Massa's win this cycle was a delicate thing, and the Burner story shows how it could have easily gone the other way if only a few things were different.
Star-Gazette columnist Jeff Aaron writes today about Republican governors like Bobby Jindal and Mark Sanford who want to return some of their states' stimulus appropriations. Aaron says that New York's delegation should make sure that we get some of the funds those states turn back. Eric Massa and his staff are quoted a fair amount in the piece.