The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

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.

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.

Representative Michelle Bachmann [R-MN-6] said some crazy things about Barack Obama (he's "anti-American") and her house colleagues (the media should find out whether they're "pro-American"). Her comments caused a million dollar fundraising burst for her opponent, and the DCCC is pouring a million more into her race.

Casting around for more Michele Bachmann-like comments, The Hill thinks they found one by Randy Kuhl, made at the 13-WHAM debate on October 10th to 13-WHAM in an interview:

I firmly believe the Democratic majority wants the American public to suffer and to hurt so that they can make some political gains at election time, and I think that’s wrong.

Politico thinks this is significant enough to be called the play of the day.

Update: Exile at The Albany Project has the video. It's from an old interview with Kuhl, conducted in August.

Reader Elmer noticed that Eric Massa was endorsed by American Hunters and Shooters.

The Star-Gazette also reports that Randy Kuhl was endorsed by Monroe County Town Supervisors, who are all Republicans.

Sean Carroll at the 13-WHAM blog has a profile of the newly announced write-in candidate in the race.

The Albany Project has scans of some pro-Massa mailers sent by the Working Families Party.

News 10 has an story asking whether endorsements matter.