The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

The Messenger-Post has a good story recapping the first few months of Eric Massa's tenure. And today's City Newspaper has an in-depth story about hydrogen fuel, which includes Massa's involvement.

Tom Reed's new website is up and running. In his latest press release, Reed says he has been endorsed by all the Republican county chairs in the 29th district.

Today's Star-Gazette editorial gives Massa "a lot of credit" for having open town-hall meetings rather than one-on-ones.

Speaking of town halls, Rochesterturning has a couple more videos of last week's meeting.

A while back, A reader pointed out that they were no longer getting Google alerts from posts here. I think that's because Google was pulling the Massa press releases from this site, and once the Massa office began posting them on his site, Google figured I was re-posting them, and they don't like that. Google still indexes this site, but doesn't post alerts when I post. Hopefully removing them will change that.

I started posting the press releases for two reasons. First, Massa's site wasn't up and running yet. Second, I think it's interesting to compare the press releases with what's published in local media. Since Massa's been posting them for all to see, I've removed them from the front page. If you want to see Massa press releases, they're here.

The feed of Massa's recent votes which was on the left column is now at the bottom right.

Rochesterturning has this video and this one of Thursday's meeting.

In the "not a moment too soon" department, The Messenger-Post story on Thursday's meeting is now on their website.

Massa's office has announced that tonight's Prattsburgh meeting, scheduled form 5-6:30, will be held in the Prattsburgh High School "Cafetorium", at 2 Naples Hill Road. It was scheduled to be held in the town hall. Presumably the new location is bigger.

The Democrat and Chronicle has an editorial commending Eric Massa for having an open town hall meeting, and dinging Slaughter, Lee and Maffei for choosing "telephone town halls" and other types of non-public meetings.

This brings up a point on the politics of protests: the reaction is just as important as the action. Noisy or unruly protests are provocative events. If the target of the protest doesn't over-react, but instead addresses the protest head-on (and calmly), a lot of the anticipated political fallout just doesn't happen.

Anyone watching the 29th district in the past couple of years learned this lesson, which was taught by a couple of peace activists and Randy Kuhl. An unruly action (a sit-in) by a few fringe elements provoked a major reaction (locking doors, canceling town halls). So far, this hasn't happened in the 29th in 2009.

Rochesterturning has started posting video of Thursday's town hall. If you watch this one, keep in mind that Massa was yelling at the top of his lungs to be sure he could be heard by hundreds of people. The sound system was set up a few minutes later.

The D&C is running a 29th race analysis by Larry Wilson of the Star-Gazette. Main points of the piece are that Monroe County Exec Maggie Brooks is out, as is Chemung County Exec Tom Santulli. Bill Nojay makes a number of points that show that he doesn't really know much about Congressional politics in 2010, chief among them that a candidate can wait until next April or May to announce.

Both the teabagger email posted by Rochesterturning and the comments on this D&C story contain the same myth:

When a show of hands went up (requested by someone in the audience) showing that the majority of the attendees did not like the bill and the federal takeover of our medical system there was no acknowledgment of the lopsidedness of the hand vote.

I've also seen a comment where the vote was spun as showing that everyone at the meeting was on the side of the teabaggers.

What really happened was that an audience member asked Massa to poll the audience on whether he should vote yes or no on the current bill. Both the Glenn Beck crowd and those who had been waving HR 676 signs (indicating support of single-payer health insurance), didn't raise their hands. Only a couple hands went up.

The reason the teabaggers didn't raise hands is obvious: they want Massa to vote "No" on everything. The reason the HR 676 supporters didn't raise their hands is also obvious: they want a tougher bill.

It's pretty weak tea to spin it as anything meaningful, but that's the level of honesty we've come to expect from the same crew who try to convince people that Barack Obama wants to smother old folks with a pillow.

Update: Anyone who's inclined to swallow the whopper about euthanasia should read this debunking by the non-partisan Factcheck.org.

Rochesterturning has the Tea Party Patriot's view of last night's town hall. I think it's indicative of the success of the meeting, because even the teabaggers find very little to complain about.