The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

Eric Massa's office has released an updated town hall meeting schedule. Two meetings have different (and presumably larger) venues. If you're thinking about going to a town hall meeting, the schedule section of Massa's website has the latest news on town hall meetings.

The Messenger-Post has a good story recapping the first few months of Eric Massa's tenure. And today's City Newspaper has an in-depth story about hydrogen fuel, which includes Massa's involvement.

Tom Reed's new website is up and running. In his latest press release, Reed says he has been endorsed by all the Republican county chairs in the 29th district.

Today's Star-Gazette editorial gives Massa "a lot of credit" for having open town-hall meetings rather than one-on-ones.

Speaking of town halls, Rochesterturning has a couple more videos of last week's meeting.

In the "not a moment too soon" department, The Messenger-Post story on Thursday's meeting is now on their website.

Massa's office has announced that tonight's Prattsburgh meeting, scheduled form 5-6:30, will be held in the Prattsburgh High School "Cafetorium", at 2 Naples Hill Road. It was scheduled to be held in the town hall. Presumably the new location is bigger.

The Democrat and Chronicle has an editorial commending Eric Massa for having an open town hall meeting, and dinging Slaughter, Lee and Maffei for choosing "telephone town halls" and other types of non-public meetings.

This brings up a point on the politics of protests: the reaction is just as important as the action. Noisy or unruly protests are provocative events. If the target of the protest doesn't over-react, but instead addresses the protest head-on (and calmly), a lot of the anticipated political fallout just doesn't happen.

Anyone watching the 29th district in the past couple of years learned this lesson, which was taught by a couple of peace activists and Randy Kuhl. An unruly action (a sit-in) by a few fringe elements provoked a major reaction (locking doors, canceling town halls). So far, this hasn't happened in the 29th in 2009.

Both the teabagger email posted by Rochesterturning and the comments on this D&C story contain the same myth:

When a show of hands went up (requested by someone in the audience) showing that the majority of the attendees did not like the bill and the federal takeover of our medical system there was no acknowledgment of the lopsidedness of the hand vote.

I've also seen a comment where the vote was spun as showing that everyone at the meeting was on the side of the teabaggers.

What really happened was that an audience member asked Massa to poll the audience on whether he should vote yes or no on the current bill. Both the Glenn Beck crowd and those who had been waving HR 676 signs (indicating support of single-payer health insurance), didn't raise their hands. Only a couple hands went up.

The reason the teabaggers didn't raise hands is obvious: they want Massa to vote "No" on everything. The reason the HR 676 supporters didn't raise their hands is also obvious: they want a tougher bill.

It's pretty weak tea to spin it as anything meaningful, but that's the level of honesty we've come to expect from the same crew who try to convince people that Barack Obama wants to smother old folks with a pillow.

Update: Anyone who's inclined to swallow the whopper about euthanasia should read this debunking by the non-partisan Factcheck.org.

Rochesterturning has the Tea Party Patriot's view of last night's town hall. I think it's indicative of the success of the meeting, because even the teabaggers find very little to complain about.

Philip Dampier, who also writes a Stop the Cap, has posted his personal experience of last night's town hall on his blog. Over at City Newspaper, Jeremy Moule has added his take.

Anyone who's wondering whether Gannett's recent cuts are affecting their coverage of local issues can take a look at today's web coverage of Massa's Mendon town hall. Politico has a report from the meeting. It's about 30 paragraphs long. The Democrat and Chronicle devoted three paragraphs, each containing one sentence, to the event.

The Politico reporter thought that healthcare opponents outnumbered supporters. That wasn't clear to me. The crowd was large, so it was hard to judge.

WHEC's video of the meeting includes a clip of the guy who was so upset about abortion. 13 WHAM also has a report on the event.

Update: Actually, the D&C has more on the meeting, but it's buried in their editorial board blog. The title is "Civility Rules at Massa Town Hall Meeting". Compared to some other meetings, where arrests were made, I guess this meeting was civil. But it sure wasn't the calmest town hall I've ever attended.