The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

WHEC carries Eric Massa's announcement of COPS grants for Cattaraugus and Monroe Counties.

The Star-Gazette has been busy posting this afternoon. First, there's the new Massa town hall meetings in Van Etten and Chili. Then, we have Massa and Reed's opinions on the public option as well as sanctions for Iran.

Both Eric Massa and Tom Reed had press conferences this morning. I'm going to try something new: side-by-side audio of three topics. Six clips are embedded after the break:

Reader Elmer sends today's Corning Leader column [pdf] by Bob Rolfe, where Rolfe reports that Tom Reed has a new nickname around town: Tom Greed.

The Corning Leader reports that Tom Reed sent a letter to state and federal representatives, including Eric Massa, to request over $5 million in stimulus funds for Corning. Reed now says that he doubts that he would accept that money.

Eric Massa will start holding radio town hall meetings on WLEA in Hornell on Fridays from 4-5 PM.

Some WLEA broadcasts are live streamed here. I don' t know if Massa's town hall is one of them.

The new Rothenberg Political House Ratings are out, and it has the 29th classified as "Lean Democratic". This is the same rating as the Cook Political Report and Congressional Quarterly.

Only Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball has the 29th as a toss-up.

Eric Massa and a bunch of local politicians attended a groundbreaking of a $45 million enhancement of US 15 in lovely Lindley.

Steve Benen at Washington Monthly created this graph from Research 2000 polling:

Even though the 29th is more Republican than the Northeast in general, I think this is a pretty powerful display of what I was trying to say in this post. The boilerplate rhetoric from the current Republican party only appeals to Southerners. Reed can't have a cut-and-paste campaign -- he needs to distinguish himself from the rest of the party.

Reader Richard sends Randy Kuhl's fundraising letter for Tom Reed [pdf]. Here's a sample:

Specifically, Massa is on the record in favor of a single-payer government administered healthcare system that would ration healthcare, and has voted to support the Presidents so-called "stimulus" package that funded liberal pet projects without any boost to our economy.

The whole thing is worth a read.

Joe Dunning's Sunday column in the Corning Leader, headlined Reed and Reality not terribly close, considers the last few months of the Reed campaign. Here's a taste:

But what may have been most surprising was that Reed’s criticism of the stimulus program came while pothole-filled Corning city streets were being paved from its proceeds.
Further, Reed asserted that Corning residents would be better off with a lower federal debt than smoother streets.
How many Corning residents would agree with their mayor on that one?