The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

Reader Elmer sends Randy Kuhl's lengthy op-ed in today's Corning Leader [pdf].  Kuhl isn't happy with the Bush budget, especially with the budget cuts that hit the Appalachian Regional Commission as well as job training programs.

What's missing from the op-ed is any discussion of how government should raise the revenue to fund those programs, or a list of the programs that should be cut to re-fund them. 

Megan McArdle is an Atlantic Monthly writer whose grandmother lives in Newark, NY.  Newark is a few miles North of the 29th district, but like a number of towns in the Southern 29th, its population is older than the national average.  McArdle thinks Newark is what the rest of the country will look like as the baby boom generation gets older.  In her article in this month's edition, she makes a number of political observations that are relevant to the election in the 29th.

McArdle notes that the needs of the elderly will push the economy towards more service, which in turn will probably mean slower growth (since productivity grows slower in the service sector than in manufacturing).  Slow growth coupled with increases in Social Security and Medicare will lead to higher taxes, benefit cuts and higher retirement ages:

The political battles over all of this will be bitter, and they will probably be, too often, won by the retirees, who vote in force (though not always as a bloc). Those same retirees may also vote against things that are actually in their interest—thus shutting out the immigrants who could help them stay at home, and out of the nursing home, longer; turning down school taxes that could create a more productive workforce to support them; fighting for zoning restrictions that make it harder for the low-income workers who provide their services to live within easy commuting distance.

McArdle's view of seniors as voters who turn out in force is evident in the politics of the 29th.  For example, possibly most effective ad of the last cycle was one that claimed that Eric Massa would raise taxes and cut social security.  It was aimed squarely at elderly voters, since it focused on the biggest fears of old people living on a fixed income.   Even though it was essentially false, I don't think anyone seriously doubts that it put some votes in Kuhl's column.

In the current cycle, the Bush Administration's budget, which has a $200 billion cut in Medicare, might lead to an ad from Democrats aimed at seniors.  The Republicans well-honed sense of self-preservation will probably kick in before that happens, however, and the cut will almost certainly be removed in committee.  

If they raise any money, RNCC may try to claim that Democrats want to insure illegal aliens in S-CHIP at the expense of the elderly.  Their "sniper" ad from last cycle shows that they'll use any excuse to scare the crap out of older voters.

Aside from the fact that they scare easily, the elderly are also more easily reached than the younger Internet- and cell-phone-using population.  Grandma doesn't have Tivo, and she watches the local TV news, so she's likely to see a paid commercial.  She also has a landline on which she can receive robocalls.

Seniors are easy to scare and easy to reach.  In the 29th, this means that we'll probably see more ads addressed to them, and they might even swing the election if someone shows them the right bogeyman.

Randy Kuhl attended the Hornell Lincoln Day Dinner last night.  No new word on whether he's running this Fall.

Today's New York Times has a story about Presidential earmarks.  Like a number of other Republicans, Kuhl has been stepping up the rhetoric on earmarks.  The Times article makes it clear, if it wasn't already, that there's more than a little political motivation in the Republicans' new-found religion on earmarks.

Biofuels are looking a little less wonderful after some scientific studies show that they increase, rather than decrease, greenhouse gas emissions.  This comes on top of earlier news that ethanol subsidies have pushed food costs to historical highs.

Randy Kuhl and Eric Massa both agree that the stimulus package that just passed Congress is a good thing, and the Hornell Evening Tribune and WENY carry reports on the trip.

In the Hornell Evening Tribune story, Kuhl also makes the claim that the WHAM "got it all wrong" when reporting in his Brazil trip.  In the same story, Massa says it's time to move on and address other, more important issues.

The Buffalo Evening News carries a Kuhl quote about the stalled extension of State Highway 219.  Apparently part of the stall was an environmental issue involving the Army Corps of Engineers.

Kuhl is one of the many signers of a Congressional friend-of-the-court brief in support of the individual right to bear arms.  The case is DC vs Heller, which challenges the DC law banning guns on constitutional grounds.  This case will add precedent on the issue of whether the Second Amendment guarantees a collective or individual right to bear arms.

(In news only I care about, the Hornell Evening Tribune switched to the Gatehouse Media standard Zope-based  content management system, so now their URLs won't change overnight.)

DragonFlyEye has a copy of Randy Kuhl's latest mailer.  It's an informative piece highlighting the availability of digital-to-analog television tuners for those who watch TV over-the-air and can't afford a new TV.

Rochesterturning notes that Kuhl introduced a resolution honoring the Veterans' Administration's 75th anniversary.

WHAM-13 has a follow-up to the recent story detailing the cost of Randy Kuhl's trip to Brazil.  In this piece, Evan Dawson calculates the cost of Kuhl's air travel as $28,611.  Dawson's blog entry contains the entire itinerary as well as his calculations.  The broadcast story is embedded after the break: DayPortPlayer.newPlayer({articleID:"190301",bannerAdObjectID:"5",videoAdObjectID:"4",videoAdConDefID:"2",playerInstanceID:"27574A89-06D1-CD92-4444-22719C5099EC",domain:"video.wokr13.com",rootCategory:"null",categoryID:"5"});

I have no great wisdom to impart on Super-Duper-Apocalypto-Big Bang Tuesday, because when all was said and done, Democrats are pretty much where they were on ordinary Monday.

I do hope the parties continue to have a bunch of primaries on one day.  It makes things more interesting and exciting.

Elmira's WETM-18 has a story about the cost of Kuhl's trip to Brazil.

Via Rochesterturning, here's a Politico story that puts Randy Kuhl in a group of a half-dozen incumbents out-raised by their opponents.

Evan Dawson of WHAM-13 has a long and thoughtful response to criticisms in the comments to a previous post.

Ontario GOP has a couple of comments in last night's post, alleging media bias in the 29th district.  I invite anyone who thinks that might be true to engage in the following mental experiment:

Imagine that your least-favorite Congressional Democrat (Louise Slaughter, Brian Higgins, whoever) went on a Congressional junket somewhere you think he or she has no business going. 

When you're looking through the media coverage of that trip, which would you prefer:

1. A series of stories that examine every detail of the trip, questioning the stated purpose, and showing that your least-favorite Democrat was giving the press the run-around, and that his or her expense report probably understated the real cost of the trip.


2. A story that re-prints Brian or Louise's press release about the trip without questioning it.
   


3. A local press that completely ignores the trip, because the trip wasn't a lot of money and there are more important things to discuss.

I want (1).  While I don't agree with (3) completely, I understand that the press sometimes tends to focus on minutiae while ignoring the big picture.  What I don't get is (2), which is apparently what some Kuhl supporters expect from the local press.

The WHAM-13 blog has a new post with more details on Randy Kuhl's trip to Brazil.  Kuhl's office has released a partial accounting of the cost of his trip, which totals around $4K.  As WHAM's Evan Dawson points out, that number is misleading because it doesn't include the cost of military air transport, which is something like $10,000 per hour.

In addition to the cost of military airtime, there's some more missing information:  how many military and/or embassy personnel were detailed to the trip?  How much time did that expensive airplane and crew have to sit around waiting to shuttle the delegation between cities?  All the disclosure appears to show is Kuhl's per diem and hotel costs, which is a small fraction of the cost to taxpayers.

This partial information release is accompanied by one of the snottiest press releases I've read in a long time.  Here's an excerpt:

The total for my portion of the trip was $4,028.93, which divided up among the 600,000+ residents the 29th District, equals approximately $0.00671 per constituent.

I understand the significance $0.00671 means to my district, but achieving energy independence is priceless to some. There are those who said that this trip was a vacation and we should have spent our time in Iowa. When Iowa finds the solution to energy independence, I will be the first to schedule a CODEL there.

It is unfortunate that some media outlets and individuals would skew this trip to only be about dollars and cents. But the truth is that this trip was desperately needed by lawmakers of Congress to find a solution to the energy crisis and I encourage more of my colleagues in Congress to visit Brazil.

Kuhl seems to be attacking the messenger, WHAM, which is an organization that's just doing its job.  When you don't disclose information when you promise to do so, it makes good reporters curious, so they follow up.  WHAM spent an inordinate amount of time and effort to find out something that could have been disclosed on time and without any static.  Their reward for going through weeks of run-around is a partial disclosure and a bunch of attitude.  They're the ones who should be snarky, but of course they've stayed professional.

If there's really nothing here, then Kuhl should put a little foot on ass with the committee bureaucracy and provide a full disclosure.  That's good representation and smart politics.

(Thanks to Exile at Rochesterturning for a heads-up on this.)