The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

Reader Rich sends a report on Massa petitioning progress in Yates County. He's a first-time petitioner, and he believes that Yates will send in roughly 1,000 signatures for Massa. This is in a county that cast a little over 3,000 votes for Massa in the last election.

Rich is aware of some Republican petitioners for State Senator George Winner, but none for Randy Kuhl.

Randy Kuhl's announcement of a Veterans' Mental Health Caucus is the subject of a positive editorial in today's Democrat and Chronicle.

Reader Elmer sends a link to Randy Kuhl's interview with the Corning Leader editorial board. The main topic is energy, with Kuhl expressing concern about the effect of the high price of heating oil on those with fixed budgets.

Kuhl also makes the following new claim:

Kuhl disputes that notion saying that while tapping into places such as ANWR would take several years, areas do exist where oil could be reached and refined in a matter of months.

Even Kuhl's latest mailer, which was full of overstatements about the consequences of ANWR and offshore drilling, made no claim about other untapped oil fields. Kuhl has been spinning ever more fanciful stories about short-term fixes to our long-term energy problems. It's hard to see how this new fabrication will help his case.

I'm traveling so here are a few things I missed the last couple of days:

• Randy Kuhl's Veterans' Conference made the D&C.
• Rochesterturning has video of Kuhl's press conference.
• Kuhl also met with the D&C editorial board.
• The Massa campaign has released its first radio ad [mp3]

Grievous Angel at Rochesterturning has a write-up of today's Massa press conference. Massa covered energy independence, Kuhl's mailer and Wes Clark's remarks on John McCain.

Massa also has a Daily Kos post discussing the Clark/McCain issue.

Rochesterturning has images of Kuhl's new gas mailer. Anyone who hasn't seen the mailer should take a careful look.

Being a Member of Congress has always been an eternal campaign, and over the years we've all become accustomed to abuse of the franking privilege by incumbents. Even at that, this one surprises me. It's indistinguishable from campaign literature. It's completely partisan, and full of falsehoods. The main claim Kuhl makes is that drilling and refinery-building that will take at least a decade to come online will immediately affect the price of gas.

In other incumbent news, the Corning Leader reports on a leadership conference attended by Kuhl and other Southern Tier incumbents in Elmira.

The Bush Legacy Bus Tour's stop at Randy Kuhl's Fairport office got some local media attention from WETM and the Messenger-Post.

The Messenger-Post story is long and detailed, and includes a video showing the inside of the bus along with some local reaction.

Reader Elmer sends a link from the Star-Gazette demonstrating the perqs of incumbency. Randy Kuhl and the state Assembly delegation will speak at the BOCES "leadership conference" tomorrow in Elmira.

Kuhl's Fairport office will get a visit from the Bush Legacy Tour Bus tomorrow, according to the Messenger-Post. The bus is a traveling museum showcasing the failures of the Bush Administration. Rochesterturning has more on the bus visit.

Reader Elmer sends two articles from today's Corning Leader. The longer piece [pdf] covers the controversy over a Massa campaign mailer which highlighted Randy Kuhl's use of a SUV to travel between DC and the district.

The Massa campaign pointed out that Kuhl's use of the SUV cost taxpayers over $15K. Kuhl's spokesman says that he's reimbursed for mileage, not gas, so the kind of car he drives doesn't matter. Until one of the two is featured on "Pimp My Ride", I don't think this will have a big impact on the Fall campaign.

The front-page story [pdf] involves the Corning sewage treatment plant, which is being upgraded due to a grant "obtained by" Randy Kuhl.

That story illustrates the payback from the constant deluge of press releases from Congressional offices. As I've explained before, Randy Kuhl or any other Member of Congress cannot obtain a grant. But Kuhl's drumbeat of grant announcements often leaves the impression that he's pulling all the strings in DC.

Update: Thanks to the anonymous reader who pointed out that the grant is what sounds like an earmark. Here's the 2005 press release which calls it a grant but says that it was specifically appropriated in a bill.

The Olean Times-Herald has a story on Randy Kuhl's call for more drilling. It contains an interesting fact: 75% of the calls coming into his office are about gas prices

In addition that facts, Kuhl goes over the same drilling territory he's covered before. He also says that wind and nuclear must be part of the energy solution. That's a difference with Massa, who opposes expansion of nuclear power and has been critical of wind projects in the 29th, where those projects have faced local opposition.

Kuhl also says that Massa's energy plan will raise the price of gas because it raises taxes. He leaves the impression that Massa wants to raise taxes on gas by saying that Massa wants to "raise taxes on a product." Massa wants to raise taxes on oil company profits. It doesn't follow that the price of gas will go up if oil company profits are taxed more than the .28% (that's point 28 percent) they are now.