The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

In addition to Randy Kuhl missing roll call votes, the Star-Gazette says that Kuhl's staff isn't returning phone calls or emails.

For the moment, Rochesterturning can be found here:

http://s267780487.onlinehome.us/

Update: Looks like their regular address is working now.

Eric Massa and a bunch of other Southern Tier politicians are quoted in a Star-Gazette story about speculation that Caroline Kennedy will be appointed to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat. Massa says little other than he'd like the appointee to be from upstate.

Rochesterturning is down and a couple of people have asked about its status. They had an issue with their hosting company and are moving hosts as we speak. They should be back online soon.

Randy Kuhl's letter to the editor of the Wellsville Daily Reporter includes this statement:

I am proud to say that during my career I worked with you all to increase economic opportunities and jobs in the district, to balance our federal budget without tax increases, and to keep our homeland safe and free from fear.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the average deficit during the years Kuhl was in DC was $242 billion, a number that doesn't include the budget-busting spending of 2008.

WETM has an interview with Eric Massa about the loan package for automakers. Massa says that operating in bankruptcy is not an option for a company like GM. If GM went bankrupt, it would be liquidated.

Jimmy Vielkind at PolitckerNY interviews Massa about New York's share of the federal budget. New York pays in far more than it gets back from the federal government, and Massa thinks its time that we got more of our share back.

Video of both interviews is embedded after the break:

Congressional Quarterly has a rundown of this cycle's rematches. The Massa/Kuhl rematch was one of the few where the challenger beat the incumbent the second time around.

The article notes that it's very rare for a first-term incumbent to be defeated by the previous incumbent. It examines a number of cases where Republicans who lost in 2006 tried to win back their seats in 2008. None of them were successful. Of course, 2008 was even worse for Republicans than 2006, but there's probably a lesson there for Randy Kuhl.

One challenger who wasn't mentioned in the article is Darcy Burner, who garnered a lot of attention on the Internet and raised big money via ActBlue. Burner lost her rematch against Dave Reichert [R-WA-8], even though she outspent him this cycle. Burner's campaign was often mentioned in the same breath as Massa's, since she lost a tight 2006 race by 3%. Burner actually lost by a slightly larger margin in 2008.

Reader Elmer sends today's Corning Leader story and photo [pdf] showing Eric Massa cutting the ribbon for the AIDS quilt display at the Southeast Steuben Public Library in Corning.

WETM has Eric Massa's take on a Detroit bailout. Massa wants to see strings similar to those attached to the 1979 Chrysler loan.

The D&C looked into CEO contributions in the Rochester-area congressional races. Wegman's CEO went all-in for Massa, while the Corning CEO put his money on Kuhl.

Julie Sherwood at the Messenger-Post follows up with write-in candidate Al Merklinger, who garnered 11 votes in his quest to represent the 29th.