The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

Randy Kuhl's presence on what's supposedly the GOP death list has WHAM, TAP and Rochesterturning talking.

The Daily Kos got a copy of the memo. While I believe that some Republican consultant somewhere probably put together that memo, I wouldn't put Kuhl in the same category as Don Young [R-AK-AL], who's been in trouble for a long time in a well-polled race.

Compared to 2006, the NRCC has already spent heavily on this race, with a little over $300K spent as of last night. So they've probably made an impact even if they pull out. The DCCC has outspent them, dropping almost $500K on the race so far. Because independent expenditures require a 24-hour notice, the place to watch is this list, which tracks all independent expenditures and is updated regularly. We'll know soon enough if the NRCC is practicing Catholic birth control in the 29th.

Randy Kuhl is on an internal GOP "goner" list, according to a report in Politico. Kuhl's seat is ranked in the worst category, along with neighboring NY-25 and the Don Young (AK-AL).

Along with that non-endorsement from his party, Kuhl also received the endorsement from Vets for Freedom.

The Hornell Evening Tribune is the first area newspaper to cover Kuhl's suffering remarks.

The Hill, which broke the story, has a follow-up documenting Kuhl's refusal to back off.

In case you haven't read enough, Sean Carroll has a full Q&A on suffrage.

City Newspaper fulfills its role as the predictable liberal voice by headlining its take The New McCarthyists.

And Congressional Quarterly finds two more Republicans who regularly call Democrats un-American in House debates.

The 13-WHAM has posted their story about Kuhl's "suffer" comment.

Reader Tom sends the City Newspaper endorsement of Eric Massa. City also has a profile of the 29th race.

Finally, Tom also sent this item from Politico which contains an e-mail soliciting DC-area Republicans to make phone bank calls. Randy Kuhl makes the top ten, with 338 calls.

Evan Dawson and Sean Carroll at 13-WHAM are working the suffering story. Evan has two posts (here and here).

Kuhl's interview on the remarks will be played tonight on the 13-WHAM broadcast. His spokeswoman, Meghan Tisinger, didn't take back Kuhl's statement this afternoon.

Evan and Sean are trying to dig into why these remarks surfaced now. I don't know the answer to that question, but the reason they're an issue now is pretty clear. Colin Powell's Obama endorsement on Meet the Press [video], and his remarks afterward [video] which singled out Michele Bachmann, have been extremely influential.

Powell, the stable center-right voice of rational Republicanism, called out all the haterade we've been seeing. He did it calmly, succintly and with one devastating example. Maybe if you're John McCain, you can stand up to Powell. Rush Limbaugh can say Powell did it because he's black. But if you're Michelle Bachmann, you have one choice: abject apology.

As for Randy Kuhl, I don't think the choice is as clear. His remarks were garden-variety haterade. He didn't say that more than half of the House of Representatives hates America. He just implied it. I think the smart move here is for him to back down and this will go away. My sense is that he's going to push it, and it won't.

Update: Kuhl did not back down. Here's a quote from the just-posted update to one of the WHAM blog posts:

I think it's outlandish to think that a comment that I made 11 weeks ago is the beginning of quote-unquote a trend of my party some two and a half months later. I'd like to think that I had that kind of leadership capability and that I was that much forefront thinking, but not particularly.

I think that one needs a re-think: Is he saying he would rather have been the leader of the stupid brigade, instead of Michele Bachmann?

Rahm Emmanuel puts Randy Kuhl on the list of Republican Members of Congress who say crazy stuff, and The Hill and Politico pick it up.

Besides Michele Bachmann and Randy Kuhl, the other Congressman on Rahm's list is Robin Hayes [R-NC-8], who said "liberals hate real Americans".

Rahm Emmanuel is in town, holding a press conference with Eric Massa about expansion of S-CHIP.

Yesterday's press outing of Randy Kuhl's overheated remarks is an interesting comment on the current political climate. That interview happened in August, and nobody made note of it then, mainly because it was pretty standard-issue rhetoric at that time.

Remember August? That's when gas prices were up and the entire fate of America rested on our desire to "Drill Here, Drill Now". Kuhl spoke of a "three-legged stool" of conservation, exploration and new technology, but he hammered away at only one of those legs.

Only Massa mentioned the other factor: the weak dollar. Now that the worldwide financial crisis has caused a flight to T-Bills (and dollars), oil prices have fallen sharply. Check out this graph of the price of oil vs. the dollar, which would be even more striking if it went into October:

We can argue about the other reasons for the lower price of oil, including weakening demand and a calmer market. What isn't up for argument is one fact: drilling had absolutely nothing to do with it.

With the current climate of overheated charges mainly coming from Republicans, Kuhl's rhetoric sounds like another example of the divisive distraction that is so damaging to our politics. Because we're in the midst of a serious financial crisis, media is finally looking hard at politicians who spout haterade instead of solutions, and Kuhl deserves his share of scrutiny.

But let's not forget the reason Kuhl deployed his overheated rhetoric, which was his eager desire to push his leadership's drilling agenda. That agenda was an example of what really hurts our politics: the search for simple-minded, slogan-ready solutions to complex problems. That search is aided and abetted by the stupidity of media types who imply that being "encyclopedic on the issues" is a strike against a candidate.

The current spending in the 29th, including money from party committees, is $1.4 million for Massa vs. $970K for Kuhl.

Randy Kuhl received a 36% rating from the League of Conservation Voters, according to the League of Conservation Voters.