The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

The Reed campaign just announced endorsements from State Senators George Winner and Cathy Young, taking the best Southern Tier candidate (Young) off the list of possible Reed challengers.

Sean Carroll has a good explanation of what's going on in Massa's office post-resignation. Massa's chief of staff, Joe Racalto, will be running the office, but not voting, until the election occurs.

Finally, a correction. I linked to a D&C item that said 5 of 7 county chairs in the 29th support Reed. As an anonymous commenter pointed out, there are 8 counties in the 29th district. So it's 5 of 8, probably.

by Michael Parks

Here's Gannett's take on Massa's two appearances yesterday.

I forgot to mention one more new detail from the Beck interview: he had been living in a townhouse in DC with other male staffers, and moved out because his chief of staff told him it "wasn't Congressional".

In other news, Mustard Street has a Reed robo-call trying to set up a telephone town hall meeting. Both Randy Kuhl and Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks have used this technique in the past to communicate with constituents.

Yesterday's D&C reported that Brooks hasn't decided whether to enter the race. Reed still has the support of 5 of the 7 county Republican chairs in the district.

I watched about half of Massa's Glenn Beck performance. What I saw was a lower-volume version of the Hornell call. Massa made his points in a rational way, but his story just doesn't hold together.

He wants us to believe that he knew nothing about the ethics investigation when he held his hastily-arranged press conference Wednesday afternoon.

He wants us to believe that he worked the phones for four years raising money and is now scandalized that some contributors want a quid pro quo.

And he wants us to believe that his staff members, who presumably want to have a career in politics, turned him in over a tickling contest and an off-color remark at a wedding reception.

None of this makes sense. I understand Beck apologized at the end of the show because the hour was wasted. I think he's right.

The Washington Post has gotten a leak of the ethics investigation of Eric Massa. According to three sources, Massa engaged in a pattern of physical harassment of male aides (characterized as "groping") going back for at least a year.

Jimmy Vielkind of the Albany Times-Union tweets that David Paterson will call a special election in the 29th "as soon as possible". Paterson said that nobody's asked him not to do it.

Stlo7 at Rochesterturning has a good catch: Mara Liason at NPR said that Massa's harassment charge revolves around emails to a male aide.

If that's true, it's huge, because they will get out. But my guess is that she mis-spoke, since no other outlet has mentioned email.

Google News says that Massa's latest dramatic performance is the subject of 496 stories, but Bob Recotta's in today's Corning Leader is as good as any.

In case it isn't obvious, I still don't think that Massa was forced out by House Democratic leadership. I think he did something wrong. And by "wrong", I don't mean that he led a double life -- I could care less about that, and I'm sure that voters would come to accept it. By "wrong", I mean that he used his power and position to harm someone on his staff.

Massa is executing a typically elaborate and well-thought-out strategy to manage his reputation and salvage what's left of his credibility. Part of that strategy is misdirection: he wants us concentrating on petty details like Rahm Emanuel's naked encounter with him in the House showers. Another part of the strategy is righteousness: he wants us to believe that he's such a proponent of single payer that he'll torpedo healthcare reform to get it.

Finally, he's trying to arouse our sympathy by (literally) waving around CAT scans. All I know about this is the direct experience I have from a close family member, who had the exact same cancer as Massa, and made a similar recovery. Suspense is just part of being a lymphoma survivor. There's no way to know whether the scar tissue in your chest is harboring cancer until it grows quite large. Unless there's more to the story, Massa's not living with more suspense today than he was a year ago. I respect Massa's battle, but my family member didn't quit his stressful job over it.

The fact remains that the only cogent reason for Massa to resign is to hide whatever he did. This will officially bury the investigation, and unofficially make any leaks include questions about the motives of the leaker.

Massa will certainly lay down a smokescreen of epic proportion in the sympathetic interviews he has scheduled tomorrow with Glenn Beck and Larry King. He's clearly angling to be a "political personality" in the mold of Sarah Palin, no matter the time, money and trust invested in him by his supporters.

The one thing that could turn this whole farce around is the appearance of the person Massa allegedly wronged. If this person speaks out, and appears honest and credible, all the bullshit that Massa's been spreading for the last 36 hours will be irrelevant.

A Republican reader sent an email from the Yates County Republican Party chair, which includes this observation:

As of today, I have heard from an advocate for Maggie Brooks; and received
personal calls from Randy Kuhl, and the declared candidate for the fall election
Tom Reed. It seems that a shorter election process and a open seat has attracted
candidates who previously flatly refused to run. These late entries seem highly
opportunistic to me, and somewhat disloyal to the candidate who they have
previously endorsed, but there could be some legitimate reasons to consider
them.