The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

Today's Massa press conference discussed Massa's new jobs plan [pdf].

Joe Spector, Gannett political reporter, has a post on the D&C political blog on the recent Massa-Kuhl dust-up. It includes Emddio Massa's letter, and the WETM video.

The Democrat and Chronicle is running a series of stories on each of the four Congressional races in the area. Today's covers the 29th and does a good job of summarizing the candidates positions on some issues, as well as the state of the race.

Reader Tom sends a scan of today's Corning Leader editorial. It's a "grins and groans" edition which takes both candidates to task.

Eric Massa gets dinged for crashing Kuhl's press conference. Randy Kuhl's groan is for misleading voters about drilling, and for failing to acknowledge that his press conference was a campaign event.

Corning Leader Managing Editor Joe Dunning has a column [pdf] on the "Kuhl, Massa tiff" which is, as usual, smart and perceptive. Thanks to Reader Elmer for sending it in.

The Salamanca Press was founded in 1867 and is now on the web. Here's a recent story about Massa stumping at Kill Buck in the Southeastern corner of the district.

Rochesterturning has a scan of today's Corning Leader, where Emiddo Massa, Eric Massa's 80 year-old father, writes to demand an apology from Randy Kuhl for remarks made Thursday.

Mr. Kuhl is completely out of line to be making an attack on myself and my wife of 57 years. Attacking a 79 year-old woman on her parenting skills is so inappropriate that I almost can't find words.

Update: Reader Elmer sends the whole editorial page [pdf], which also includes some comments from the Leader website.

The recent layoffs at Gannett seem to be showing at the Star-Gazette. Every other media outlet covering yesterday's press conference led or featured the Kuhl/Massa confrontation. Yet, reading the Star-Gazette story, one gets the impression that it was a run-of-the-mill press conference.

Comparing that story with Kuhl's press release, it's pretty clear that the S-G story was just a re-write of the release. That's pretty common practice.

What's strange is that nobody at the S-G reacted to the television coverage of the early afternoon, or even to the campaign press releases. No editor tacked on another paragraph acknowledging that the press conference didn't go as planned. I wonder if that would have happened before Gannett's recent layoffs.

Because the S-G allows comments, the commenters are now filling in the gaps in the story. Well, somebody has to do it.

My posts on yesterday's rumble in Corning were tongue-in-cheek for a reason. I don't think much of what is said in campaigns in August resonates with most voters.

Politics is a bit like the Olympics in that regard. Some people follow swimming or curling closely. The rest of us pay attention for two weeks every two years. Between Olympics, some great achievement might register, but it's mostly background noise.

Since politics has more impact on our daily lives, and is more widely covered than, say, synchronized swimming, this analogy isn't perfect. That said, I do talk to a wide variety of fairly well-read and well-educated district residents who have no clue who represents them in Congress.

Keeping that in mind, I think yesterday's dust-up probably made its biggest impact on those who already have a set view of either candidate. For tuned-in Massa supporters, it shows that he's a fighter. For Kuhl supporters paying close attention, it shows that Massa is an upstart.

For everyone else, it's like beach volleyball in May. We know it exists, but we're going to wait for the Olympics to pay attention.

Corning-area media covered yesterday's confrontation a bit unevenly. On television, WENY has a short story that lacks the color of yesterday's WETM account. In print, the Corning Leader has a longer story in today's edition. The Elmira Star-Gazette has a story about the press conference, but it doesn't mention the confrontation. I guess the S-G reporter left before it happened and his or her editors don't watch TV.

Evan Dawson at the 13WHAM blog compares the situation to Harold Ford's in Tennessee and wonders if it will hurt Massa. Exile at Rochesterturning thinks it's not a big deal.

Update: Syracuse News 10 also has a story.

Randy Kuhl's Congressional Office and Eric Massa's campaign have issued press releases about this morning's rumble. Drill in below to read more.