The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

Reader Tom sends a story from 13-WHAM's Sean Carroll, who reports on how politicians in numerous races in the area are ducking debates. Randy Kuhl apparently initially turned down an invitation for 13-WHAM, but has since reconsidered.

I received my first glossy mailer [pdf] of the campaign yesterday, and it wasn't from Eric Massa or Randy Kuhl. Responsible New York, the political action committee founded by billionaire Tom Golisano, sent a mailer on behalf of David Nachbar, the Democratic candidate for New York Senate in the 55th Senate District.

The 55th contains the same set of Monroe County (Rochester) suburbs as the 29th district, plus some others to the west and north. The Rochester suburbs are extremely important to the Massa campaign. In the last election, about 1/3 of the votes cast came from Monroe County, and Massa won Monroe by 14 points.

Nachbar's opponent, Jim Alesi, has been in office for 12 years, about the same time that I've lived in his district. I don't recall a single serious challenge to Alesi during that time. Nachbar has the potential to mount that challenge. He's got money, is well-spoken, and has an solid business background. If he energizes Democrats in the Northern 29th, Massa's victory margin here could make it tough for Kuhl to make up the difference in the traditionally Republican Southern Tier.

Exile at Rochesterturning has a post on Social Security and the Massa/Kuhl campaign of 2006.

Jerri Kaiser at the Albany Project has posted the second half of the story about the endorsement event where retired Generals Batiste and Eaton appeared in support of Eric Massa.

Syracuse News 10 has story and video about Eric Massa's social security plan. Massa unveiled the plan in a news conference in Corning. The full plan [pdf] is available from his website.

Jerri Kaiser at the Albany Project has a report on the Eaton/Batiste endorsement yesterday in Rochester.

Congressional Quarterly has a story on today's Republican news conference in Washington. Randy Kuhl points out that John McCain changed his position to support offsite drilling.

Today's Massa press conference concentrated on Randy Kuhl's "floor speech" on energy.

This morning's Republican press conference at the Capitol was apparently bumped from C-SPAN by Kwame Kilpatrick's removal hearing.

Update: According to Kuhl's office, the event happened but has not yet aired. Here's the C-SPAN link where it will be archived after it airs.

Two retired generals, Paul Eaton and John Batiste, attended a joint endorsement event for Eric Massa and NY-26 candidate Jon Powers. Jerri Kaiser at the Albany Project has photos of the event.

Batiste lives and works in Rochester, and he endorsed Massa last year. Eaton's last Iraq assignment was being in charge of training the Iraqi military in 2003 and 2004.

Randy Kuhl is not attending the Republican National Convention this year. Instead, he's in Washington for another protest against higher gas prices and, in his view, Nancy Pelosi's "inaction".

According to his office, Kuhl and other Republicans will hold a press conference tomorrow at 11 a.m., which will be televised live on C-SPAN or C-SPAN-2.

Reader Tom sends today's Corning Leader Insider column [gif], where Bob Rolfe dings Randy Kuhl for criticizing Massa's parents, and for ignoring 1.8 million acres of new offshore oil leases in his calls for more drilling.