The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

I attended today's Massa Press conference, which is nicely written up by Grievous Angel at Rochesterturning, so no need to duplicate that fine effort. I'll do the color commentary instead.

Other than the aftermath of last night's primary, the most interesting exchange had to do with gas prices. Massa floated the possibility of a gas price freeze, which is what Richard Nixon did during the last "gas crisis". While I recognize that politicians need to feel that they're doing "something", having lived through the last set of price freezes, I don't think this idea will work. You can read more about that here.

As a threat, it might have some effect on gas prices, if oil companies took it seriously.

The other part of his recommendation, strengthening the dollar, has to be our nation's long-term goal. But the only way to achieve that goal is to reduce our debt. That won't happen overnight.

Massa's diagnosis of the current energy problem, and his long-term energy plan, are both correct. Short-term, I don't think there's anything he or any other politician can propose that will change today's unfortunate energy situation.

This is CPR/AED awareness week, as proclaimed by a bill sponsored by Randy Kuhl and Dan Boren (D-OK-2). Kuhl's office has a press release on the week, which includes a link to a free, online CPR and AED training. The link only works during this week.

The Democrat and Chronicle mentions the week as part of a story on how a woman in Webster helped save her husband's life using CPR.

David Nachbar, who briefly ran for the Democratic nomination in the 29th, has announced his candidacy for State Senate in District 55. That office is currently occupied by six-term Republican Jim Alesi. As you can see in Rochesterturning's post on the announcement, a large part of SD-55 is in the 29th District.

Having a well-financed challenger who will run an serious campaign is probably a benefit to Eric Massa, and the Massa campaign has already announced Massa's endorsement of Nachbar.

Update: Rochesterturning has a lengthy interview with Nachbar.

There was a Greenpeace rally in Elmira yesterday, with the goal of having participants write Randy Kuhl and Eric Massa to ask them to make global warming an issue in the election.

Wait -- there's a Greenpeace chapter in the Southern Tier?

In other news, the Rothenberg Political Report has an item on John McCain's efforts (or, more correctly, lack of effort) in the recent special Congressional elections. According to their analysis, McCain is likely to campaign for candidates only in Presidential battleground states. New York won't be one of those states, so Randy Kuhl can't bank on a campaign appearance by McCain in the 29th.

Following up on yesterday's story, WENY asked Randy Kuhl about his plan to lessen the impact of higher gas prices. Kuhl says he supports a federal gas tax holiday and also supports a $6,000 tax credit for those who buy a fuel-efficient car.

The gas tax holiday has been discussed earlier here and here. It just won't work.

The tax credit for buying a more economical car might actually be effective. But with the rising deficit, I'd like to see how it will be financed, and I'd also like to see a study showing that a tax credit is a significantly better incentive than the rising price of gas itself. Maybe $4/gallon gas by itself will spur people to buy smaller cars.

Eric Massa makes a brief statement in a WENY story about gas prices. Massa's comments are drowned out by some crazy talk from Maurice Hinchey (D-NY-22), who wants to cap the price of gas at $2.49 and give everyone $6,000 for buying more fuel efficient vehicles. Maurice was mum on the possibility of shiny new ponies for everyone, though that might be coming in a follow-up story.

Massa will be one of the speakers at a pro-Clinton rally outside tomorrow's DNC meeting discussing the seating of the Michigan and Florida delegations. Hotline has promoted Massa to Representative in that item.

I ran across a couple of interesting reads this week.

First, the Congressional Budget Office's letter [pdf] to Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) about the Webb GI Bill.

The CBO analysis shows that, as John McCain claims, the new GI Bill would decrease retention. However, the CBO's analysis shows that this can be partially offset by recruiting bonuses, and also that the quantity and quality of new recruits will rise with better educational bonuses. In addition, the total five-year cost of the original bill is $1.1 billion. That last number doesn't figure in the additional taxes paid by better-educated (and therefore better-paid) vets.

Second, here's an interesting McClatchy story about the Bush administration's budget requests for Iraqi police versus US police. The White House wants $603 million for Iraqi police, yet has cut a grant program for local police by $700 million. Since the start of the war, we've spent a little over $20 billion on training and equipping the Iraqi police force and army.

Grievous Angel at Rochesterturning has today's Massa Press Conference. The main topic was the Webb GI Bill, from a number of different angles. Massa sees it as a key difference between him and Randy Kuhl.

Randy Kuhl gave yesterday's commencement address at Keuka College. Kuhl's speech drew heavily on the inspiration of John F. Kennedy's inagural address. Today, Kuhl will be at the Fairport Memorial Day commemoration, which is keynoted by Maj. Gen. (Ret.) John Batiste, an outspoken critic of the Iraq War and Massa endorser.

Eric Massa will attend the Memorial Day commemoration at the Corning American Legion. Massa is not campaigning today.

The DCCC will run radio ads decrying another one of Kuhl's Iraq votes. This ad campaign targets his "present" vote on Iraq funding. I think the vote against the new GI bill is a more important vote, but who am I to question the wisdom of the DCCC? (via Rochesterturning)

Randy Kuhl voted to override President Bush's veto of the Farm Bill yesterday. The override is in a bit of limbo now, because a clerical error omitted an uncontroversial part of the bill from the first vote. It looks like the whole bill will be re-voted, re-vetoed and re-overridden.