The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

Reader Tom sends a story from R-News about campaign sign theft. I usually make up a sarcastic, hyperbolic title for these kinds of stories, but in this case I'll just use Seth Voorhees' hysterical headline. I hope there's some irony there, but I don't see it in the story.

Stuart Rothenberg has upgraded the 29th race to "Toss-Up/Lean Democratic" from "Toss-Up/Lean Republican". Rothenberg is pretty bullish on the Democrats' prospects for Congressional pick-ups: he predicts a gain of 25-30 seats.

Two other raters, Charlie Cook and Congressional Quarterly both have the race leaning Republican. Neither of them are forecasting as big a Democratic gain as Rothenberg.

WENY and WETM both have debate coverage and video.

The Star-Gazette and the Corning Leader also have stories on the debates.

Rochester News 10 has a story on the "negative ads" in the campaign.

Rochesterturning has a short video of Eric Massa commenting on Friday's debate.

Sean Carroll has posted the answers to six user questions he didn't get to ask at Friday's debate on the 13-WHAM blog.

Tonight's Massa/Kuhl debate will be broadcast live at 7 p.m. on WENY and the Star-Gazette website.

Reader Elmer sends a Corning Leader story [pdf] about rematches in Congressional districts. Kuhl and Massa are one of many.

Exile at The Albany Project has a detailed post on Randy Kuhl's effort to stop the broadcast of a 527 ad on health care. Kuhl has sent a letter to station managers asking them not to run the ad.

Exile also has the scoop on Randy Kuhl's $2,500 fundraiser at Oak Hill.

The Star-Gazette/WENY debate details have been announced. The debate will be broadcast live and on the S-G website.

Reader Elmer sends today's story [pdf] about some recent union endorsements of Eric Massa.

Today's Democrat and Chronicle gives its Golden Pen to a letter decrying negative ads. Though purportedly against negative ads in general, the only examples used in the letter were from Democrats. Eric Massa was one example.

Click on the "Ads" category to the right and you can make your own judgment on negative ads in this race. Kuhl and Massa began with one positive ad each, and after that, everything's been "negative". Moreover, the ads haven't been that negative -- they've stuck to issues rather than personalities and associations.

If the D&C is going to hold up letters as shining examples, it could at least pick ones that have a bit of balance.

Reader Elmer sends Bob Rolfe's Column [pdf] where Rolfe, a long-time Massa supporter, expresses his concerns about Massa's position on the bailout.

The Olean Times-Herald covers Randy Kuhl's visit to a high school class in Little Valley. WENY has a story about Kuhl's appearance at the opening of Republican headquarters in Elmira.

Reader Elmer sends a Star-Gazette item which announces that Eric Massa will be on 820-AM in Elmira at 1 p.m. on Saturday. Randy Kuhl will also appear sometime before the election.

Elmer also reports that he heard a Chamber of Commerce radio ad in support of Randy Kuhl and his positions on health care.. The Chamber supports a minimalist approach to health care reform, as explained here.

The Messenger-Post has a story about polling in the 29th.

In that story, Justin Stokes, Kuhl's campaign manager, argues that IVR (touch-tone) polls, such as the SurveyUSA poll, may have issues with their methodology. That may be true, though SurveyUSA had a good track record in the Presidential primaries. Today's Research 2000 poll was a live interview poll, and it was pretty close to the SurveyUSA poll.

That all said, polling House races is harder than Presidential race polling. In 2006, Mark Blumenthal posted an excellent analysis at pollster.com, explaining the difficulties involved.