The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

Democratic party chair Howard Dean will be in Rochester May 15 for the Monroe County designating convention.  He'll also participate in a fundraiser for Eric Massa earlier that day.

Grievous Angel at Rochesterturning has an interview with Eric Massa on gas prices.  Massa makes another important point about gas prices:  the low value of the dollar drives high oil prices.

Reader Elmer sends a photo page [pdf] from the Corning Leader, which features a shot of Massa addressing a Memorial Day event, as well as a shot of Amo Houghton, former 29th Representative.

Since the price of gas has become a political issue, here's a roundup of media stories addressing some of the ideas floating around:

Evan Dawson at Rochester WHAM-13 talks to an economist about a gas tax holiday. It turns out that the way the gas market is structured in New York, any cut in gas taxes could be swallowed up by middlemen, and we would also probably see a rebound shock at the end of Summer.

McClatchy has a round-up of things President Bush could do to cut the price of gas. One thing Bush didn't mention yesterday might work, and everything he did mention won't work.

Reuters analyzes the claim that a 2002 authorization drilling in ANWR would have solved today's problem. It wouldn't, and at maximum production far in the future ANWR would have only accounted for 2% of our total oil consumption. It's a oft-mentioned drop in the bucket.

Randy Kuhl will receive the American Heart Association Service Award today. Last year, Kuhl sponsored H.Con.Res 215 which supported "National Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Automated External Defibrillator Awareness Week".

In that same vein, I hope everyone knows about the new hands-off only CPR guidelines for witnessed adult collapse.

• You hold a national office yet start issuing press releases about state grants.
• Your opponent is #3 in the ranking of fundraising competitiveness for Congressional seats.
• You get picked to do your party's radio address, but the topic is gas prices.

Today's Corning Leader has a story on the Farm Bill, which is still crawling through Congress. The bill includes $1.6 billion in specialty crop funding, which will help the area's apple and grape growers.

The bill still includs $5.2 billion of "direct payments" to farmers, who are making record profits due to high food prices that are causing widespread malnutrition in developing countries.

The Times' article on the bill notes that the ethanol tax credit has been reduced 6 cents, to 45 cents/gallon. Though the bill adds incentives for cellulosic ethanol, the corn ethanol subsidy continues to line the pockets of agribusiness without contributing to energy independence.

The ethanol subsidy is an area of government dysfunction where both the left and right can agree. Eric Massa has spoken out against corn ethanol in the past. And even the conservative National Review thinks we're getting shafted:

But today, liberal environmentalists are not the ones pushing ethanol. It's Agribusiness, all the way. Most reputable liberals believe ethanol to be a big joke — an enormous corporate welfare subsidy with no real benefits and many downsides.

On many issues, Conservatives have more in common with ideological liberals than we do with the business interests that come to Washington looking for a handout. Our goal should be to persuade the Left — to use clear failures we agree on, like ethanol — to demonstrate that Big Business will always come to Washington for handouts until Washington stops giving them altogether. Each new handout is the next ethanol, the next sugar — and once you've started giving a handout, it never ends.

Randy Kuhl's popular predecessor Amo Houghton, who retired after nine terms, has once again endorsed Kuhl for Congress, according to WETM-TV.  Hougton's take on Kuhl's tenure:  "outstanding".

If you want to know the difference between the more affluent and suburban Northern 29th, and the less affluent and more rural Southern Tier, look no further than this story in today's Corning Leader.  The town of Bath, located a few miles from Randy Kuhl's home in Hammondsport, is reeling after Wal-Mart decided not to build a superstore there.

Two years ago, Wal-Mart was interested in building a superstore in Lima, just over the district border.  Residents in nearby Mendon, a Rochester exurb full of sprawling homes and horse paddocks, began a campaign against Wal-Mart that has been successful.

Today, there's no superstore in Lima, and Muffy and Biff are happy that they can still drive their Volvo to the local hardware store in Mendon to buy fencing wire for their stable.  There's no superstore in Bath, and the town's deputy supervisor is "disappointed, very disappointed."

The Hornell Evening Tribune covers Randy Kuhl and Eric Massa's positions on gas prices.  This is a good story and worth reading in its entirety.  It's also notable for this Kuhl quote about the McCain proposal for a gas tax holiday:

“The effect I’m concerned about is loss of revenue,” Kuhl said. “That loss would be covered by the general fund, so there would be a lessening of the impact, but I don’t like the idea of building future debt for our children.”

Kuhl, the Republican in the race, rarely acknowledges the massive national debt.

The Wellsville Daily Reporter has a story with photo of Kuhl presenting a DAR good citizen award.  Some commenters on earlier fundraising stories have noted that it appears that Kuhl doesn't want to fundraise.  But in the Southern Tier, where free publicity like this story is plentiful for an incumbent, perhaps Kuhl's decision to spend more time at photo ops rather than on the phone begging for money makes some sense.  And remember, this publicity is all on Uncle Sam's dime.

Reader Elmer sends the front page [pdf] and jump [pdf] of two stories in today's Corning Leader.  One story is about rising gas prices.  Eric Massa is the main subject, and he states his opposition to John McCain's plan to temporarily suspend gas taxes to lower the price of gas. 

The other story is Massa and Kuhl's fundraising numbers, which includes one rationale for Kuhl's low numbers:  he started later than Massa.

The Hornell Evening Tribune also has a story on Massa and Kuhl's fundraising numbers.