The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

Here are a couple of interesting items I missed this week:

• The Messenger-Post has video and a story about a pro-health care rally in Canandaigua. There are some nice Halloween costumes in the mix.
• As usual, Philip at Stop the Cap had a good piece on the Wall Street Journal story mentioned in the previous post. Phil was quoted in that story, and he found three other errors in the piece, in addition to the misnaming of Eric Massa.

Keep reading -- who knows what I'll miss next week!

Reader David sends this item from the Wall Street Journal. The topic is tiered Internet plans, and it includes this quote:

When Time Warner announced last March it would expand its metered-pricing approach to other cities, including Austin and Rochester, protests erupted. Rep. Joe Messa of Rochester introduced a bill in Congress banning tiered Internet pricing plans, arguing the plan would put his city at a disadvantage for corporate investment.

Of course, "Joe Messa" is "Eric Massa".

Aside from that howler, the rest of the report is a big wet sloppy kiss to Internet service providers. It says that the FCC's enforcement of net neutrality will push the ISPs to institute tiered pricing (i.e., usage caps and overage charges). It fails to mention that by far the most profitable service Time-Warner provides is Internet service, that ISPs have little competition and engage in monopolistic price fixing, and that the costs of equipment and bandwidth have been falling every year.

Reader Elmer sends today's Corning Leader story [pdf] (and jump [pdf]) detailing the two candidate's position on the $250 bonus for seniors. Both are for it, they just don't agree on how to fund it.

The Star-Gazette compares Massa and Reed's positions on the stimulus.

If you're interested in more information about Massa's position on wind power, the top of the Cohocton Wind Watch has an embedded video and a link to Massa's letter to President Obama on the topic. In a nutshell, Massa's beef is that a foreign company got $77 million of stimulus money to build windmills in the area, where there's not enough wind at the right time to make those windmills effective.

There was some kind of train wreck at a Cohocton town board meeting, where Eric Massa's letter in opposition to wind development in the area hit the fan.

In other energy news, Massa is going to anchor "Hydrogen Power Hour" tonight at 9 on C-SPAN.

Rochesterturning has link to Massa's appearance on the Bill Press radio show. The podcast is currently on Press's front page.

The Corning Leader gives Tom Reed a groan for trying to paint Eric Massa as a "Pelosi clone".

Tom Reed's campaign has a press release out dinging Eric Massa for taking corporate PAC money. Reed's point is that Massa's a hypocrite since he pledged not to take PAC money in his first two races. Also, though Massa often claims that he's not popular with his party's leadership, Reed says that donations from Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and others prove the opposite.

I predict that neither of these issues will have traction in the 2010 campaign.

Unless you can tie a campaign contribution to a specific bad act ("pay for play"), voters don't seem to care much about where a politician's money comes from. More importantly, if Reed plans to run a real campaign, he's also going to take some corporate PAC money, so he'll be open to the same charge of hypocrisy that he's leveling at Massa.

Nancy Pelosi didn't give Eric Massa money because he's her favorite. Pelosi could well be quite irritated with Massa, who has voted against his party at a couple of important floor votes. But Nancy Pelosi would rather be pissed at Massa than lose her position as Speaker, so she and the rest of her leadership group will be throwing money towards all of the Representatives in tight races.

The fact that Massa can get money from Pelosi without bending to her will is another benefit of living in a contested district -- a Member of Congress facing a tight race is more likely to vote with his district than with his leadership. It's the complacent safe-seat Member who tends to kow-tow to leaders in order to curry favor.

Reed's press release is included after the break:

Tom Reed's FEC report is out. It shows that Reed raised $136K and has $117K cash on hand. Reed contributed $13K to his own cause.

Reed's financial report is remarkable because it's almost entirely contributions from individuals and political committees in the area. There are no national party contributions, so Reed could still go to that well in the future.

This is a decent first effort by Reed, and it shows that he should be able to finance a credible challenge to Massa in 2010.

Eric Massa's money report is in. He raised $289K this quarter, bringing his cash on hand to a little over $500K. $179K of Massa's total came from individuals, and $110K came from PACs.

Reed's numbers haven't hit the FEC website yet, but his campaign claimed $130K, less than half of what Massa raised this quarter.

The Star-Gazette has a good summary of the possible layoffs at the Elmira Post Office. Because mail volume is down, the Post Office wants to consolidate mail processing in Rochester. Massa wants the P.O. to prove that the changes will save money.