The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

Reader Stan sends in a snippet of subscription-only Roll Call's latest election guide for the 29th.

Outlook: Leans Democratic

Massa, a retired Navy commander, ousted Rep. Randy Kuhl (R) in 2008 after falling just a few thousand votes short two years earlier. He’s a prime Republican target in a conservative district, but how hard he’ll have to work will depend on the quality of the GOP nominee. State Sen. George Winner (R) probably has right of first refusal, but it isn’t clear yet if he wants to run.

The LA Times quotes Eric Massa saying that the $500K/year proposed revenue limit for farm benefits excludes "every single farm" in the 29th.

Buffalopundit has an interview with Assemblyman Sam Hoyt about high-speed rail. The Roaring Republican also makes the good point that a link to Niagara Falls could be a major selling point for rail.

The Star-Gazette's latest editorial defends earmarks.

Bloomberg uses Eric Massa as an example of the changing relationship between Democrats and the Chamber of Commerce.

Chris Bowers, one of the founders of Open Left and a major voice in the netroots community, lets Eric Massa have it with both barrels over Massa's recent vote against the recent housing bill. Bowers thinks that Massa's explanation, which is that the bill disproportionately benefits mortgage holders in other states, is "borderline unpatriotic" and notes that "Someone who thinks like this should not be in Congress."

Bowers' typically overheated prose shouldn't surprise anyone who visits his blog even semi-regularly. Still, I think his post is worth careful study by netroots supporters under the mis-impression that he's part of a serious political movement.

Bowers' post, coming barely two months into the Massa's term, implies that one "wrong" vote will cause the netroots to throw their elected candidates under the bus. If that's true, then the strategy for a challenger is simple:

1. Before you're elected, cultivate the netroots assiduously so you can get plenty of that easy ActBlue cash. Write some blog posts, attend netroots conventions and support the netroots pet causes.
2. After you're elected, forget that the netroots existed, because you'll inevitably vote in ways that will anger them, and incumbents can finance their campaigns without ActBlue cash.

Of course, this reasoning presupposes that Bowers' threat to withhold ActBlue money is worth anything. I'm sure it isn't, because there are a number of pragmatic ActBlue supporters who realize that a Democrat needs to make a few compromises to stay in office in a district like NY-29. Those supporters will probably throw a few bucks Massa's way in 2010.

Bowers's final threat, which is "to submit a modified version of this blog post as an op-ed to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle" is perhaps the most vacuous of all. Eric Massa would like nothing more than to define himself in contrast to members of the "far left", and if the D&C bothered to post his op-ed, Massa would have a field day defending himself.

Chris Bowers might know a lot about building a blogging and fundraising community, but he's out to sea when it comes to influencing a sitting Member of Congress.

The Star-Gazette thinks that the stimulus is "good offense" against joblessness.

The Buffalo News comes out in support of high-speed rail for upstate.

The Star-Gazette details some of the spending bill appropriations in the Southern Tier, which are mainly money for roads, but also include funding for teacher education and a domestic violence program.

Eric Massa is quoted in the Navy Times, expressing concern that the results of the Navy's readiness assessment, called Insurv, are now classified.

The Star-Gazette carries Eric Massa's take on the Presidential helicopter program. Massa thinks they'll be building a Chevy instead of a Caddy.

WENY has posted the second part of their visit to Massa's office in DC:

WENY spent a day with Eric Massa in Washington. Here's the video:

Eric Massa cast his first big vote against his party when he voted against the housing bill (HR 1106) this afternoon. He was one of 24 Democrats who opposed it.

The Hornell Evening Tribune reports that Massa will lead the St. Patrick's Day parade there.

The Messenger-Post's latest op-ed tackles the stimulus bill from a conservative angle, and claims that Massa made the wrong choice. Another M-P column, from Kevin Frisch, was reprinted in another paper, and we learn why Rush Limbaugh needs to be the head of the Republican party.

Evan Dawson takes a another crack at the issue of Kirsten Gillibrand's position on gun control. As I mentioned earlier, she's getting some heat because she removed support from a measure favored by gun groups.

What's interesting about Evan's piece is the quotes from Ken Mathison, a spokesman for gun advocacy group SCOPE, who sounds like a Daily Show caricature. Here's a taste:

Well, that's like putting a gun to the head of any gun owner in New York state.

And right at this moment, she's in trouble. She's going to lose her next election at this rate. She might as well move to New York City and forget her conservative friends from upstate if she won't retract this statement.

Mathison might have held his breath and stomped his feet, but Evan doesn't include that detail.

New York is a fairly blue state that, overall, seems to be comfortable with gun control. Kirsten Gillibrand is probably going to be re-elected, and even if she has a tough race, it's doubtful that a Republican courting downstate votes will ardently oppose gun control. In that context, SCOPE's threats are just empty rhetoric. Mathison's red-faced tactics might play well with his constituents, but they aren't going to get him any closer to Gillibrand's office.

SCOPE members need to think about what's achievable with Gillibrand, a gun owner who was sympathetic to SCOPE's agenda in the past. SCOPE might not be able to get Gillibrand to vote against the "big stuff", but they might convince her to back off at the margins. They could get her to change positions on a borderline committee vote, or get her to vote against some obscure amendment they oppose. Instead, after one month, they've decided to go medieval on her.

The political landscape is littered with SCOPE-like groups. They find a single issue, develop a mailing list of supporters, and keep them happy by being quoted in the media spouting the harshest possible rhetoric. That might be an effective fundraising tactic, but it sure isn't effective lobbying.

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:

• Acela runs between cities (DC, New York and Boston), that have excellent mass-transit facilities which connect directly to the rail stations. The upstate cities where high-speed rail is planned have mediocre mass transit. Someone wanting to travel from, say, Orchard Park to Pittsford, is probably going to have to drive their car at one end and take a cab at the other.
• Acela's equipment doesn't run at 150 MPH for much of the route, mostly due to track restrictions related to track width and quality. I wonder if the right-of-way for the new track will be wide enough to let high-speed rail run at full throttle here.
• Acela trains are a joint venture between Bombardier and Alstom. Alstom has a big presence in the 29th, so that explains a lot of why Eric Massa would be gung-ho for this project, and it also explains how it could stimulate the 29th's economy.