The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

It's only April, yet the papers are full of news relevant to the 29th district race.

First, Randy Kuhl's new office hours get a second look from the Messenger-Post.  Today's story has reaction quotes from locals, with the usual mix of Democrats and Republicans.

Kuhl's earmarks for Elmira College were singled out by Citizens Against Government Waste, and WETM in Elmira
has the story.

CSX had another derailment in Monroe County, this time in Palmya, and Randy Kuhl's efforts to get CSX track inspected made the Messenger-Post.   The inspections show that the track is in bad shape, and Kuhl calls for it to be repaired.   Since Kuhl is on the transportation committee, the next logical step would be hearings to see why the Federal Railroad Administration would let CSX continue with such bad track, but Kuhl hasn't called for that, he has called for hearings , which will  probably because hearings would show the same pattern of poor regulation typical of the Bush Administration.  I expect this will be a campaign issue in the Fall.

Finally, in yesterday's Messenger-Post story, which mentioned Eric Massa's call for a debate, Kuhl said that Massa asks for a debate about "once a week".  The reason why Massa is constantly asking for debates is pretty simple:  those requests tend to make the paper.

Randy Kuhl's new office hours made the Messenger-Post.  According to Brian Roth's story, the Kuhl meetings are all 30 minutes long.  This is another reduction.  Last year, his meetings in larger towns lasted for an hour.

The Iraq withdrawal plan backed by Eric Massa and other candidates is getting a lot of positive press.  Here's an example from the New Republic:

"A Responsible Plan" represents a welcome shift for the party not just in vision, but in substance. Admittedly, the immediate strategy that it outlines for Iraq is standard Democratic fare. It calls for a drawdown of American forces and a focus on a diplomatic and political solution. But while too many Democratic plans zero in on the troop drawdown, the "Responsible Plan"'s emphasis is on what Congress can reasonably achieve: namely, economic, political, and humanitarian steps necessary to manage the situation in Iraq as American forces leave.

In other Massa news, Massa is one of the top fundraisers at Act Blue, which is an online Democratic fundraising clearinghouse.  According to Massa's page, he's raised over a quarter million dollars from over 4,500 supporters.  I assume those numbers are for the cycle, but I'm guessing they indicate that the Massa campaign had a good first quarter.

Reader Elmer sends the Corning Leader article [pdf] announcing Randy Kuhl's Town Hall Office Hours.  Kuhl has changed the format of his town hall appearances to private meetings with constituents.  In the press release announcing the new set of meetings, Kuhl says that the reason for the change was that his office received complaints that the meetings were "too impersonal" and constituents felt that they "couldn't voice their opinions".

As anyone who's been paying attention knows, the real reason that Kuhl changed the meeting format was that some of the meetings had turned into raucous confrontations between Kuhl and dissatisfied constituents.   Kuhl had tried the technique of calling the meetings "listening opportunities" where he refused to answer questions from constituents, but that went over poorly.   So now meetings with Kuhl are by appointment only.

The Monroe County meetings I attended last year were packed.  If the meetings attract the same number of constituents this year, there's no chance that Kuhl will be able to meet with even a fraction of those who want to talk to him.  The Massa campaign has already alleged that the meetings are for core constituents only, but it really doesn't matter who Kuhl talks with for 5 or 10 minutes.  Kuhl's format change has transformed these meetings into a non-event.

I imagine the same groups who demonstrated inside the meetings last year will demonstrate outside this year, and my guess is that they'll still get some media time in the Rochester market, so I don't see how this change helps Kuhl politically. My experience was that a good number of constituents who showed up at these meetings with an honest interest in what Kuhl had to say, and no matter what you thought of Kuhl's positions, his willingness to answer some pretty tough questions would probably have garnered a vote or two among those in attendance.

The Watertown Daily Times has a long story about Randy Kuhl and the demise of moderate Republicans.  As the article points out, Kuhl is only "moderate" in comparison to the current crop of Republicans:  "with the ranks of so-called moderate Republicans in Congress thinning, Mr. Kuhl, who supports organized labor and lower taxes, is looking a lot more middle-of-the-road."

The story doesn't point out that Kuhl's labor support is mixed at best.  For example, he voted against the Employee Free Choice Act, which was the "big" labor bill last year.  But the general point of the article, which is that Republican moderates and the groups that support them are languishing, is absolutely correct.  Some of those groups have been diminished to almost nothing:

The Log Cabin Republicans PAC, which supports candidates supportive of gay and lesbian issues, has contributed just $1,000 to candidates so far this cycle, after giving $31,144 to 11 House candidates and one Senate candidate in 2006.

The Iraq exit strategy proposed by Eric Massa and other candidates and military experts received some mention in today's Washington Post and on MSNBC.  Money quote from the MSNBC story:

“This plan offers a path out of Iraq. This administration has built a parking lot to keep us there,” said Eric Massa, who is running in New York’s 29th district. Massa added that much of the American public falsely believes that their only choices are between cutting and running and staying forever.

Reader Elmer sends today's Corning Leader article [pdf] on the Kuhl mailer, in which Eric Massa criticizes Kuhl's mailers as well as the practice of spending money on mailers by members in either party.

The New York Times has an in-depth story on the National Republican Congressional Committee, and its leader, Tom Cole (OK-4).  The NRCC is facing trouble raising money from a disenchanted base (one donor returned a fundraising letter full of feces), and they're also facing a shift in the electorate.  I thought this take, by one of Cole's deputies, was spot-on:

You go back to the Reagan years, and even before that, and we always had a three-legged stool: anti-Communism, anti-abortion and tax and spend [...] The first leg dropped off when the Berlin Wall fell, and after 9/11 we’ve tried to do the same thing with terrorism, but it’s not as strong. The second leg, tax and spend, was pretty strong until George Bush. Then we had just one leg of the stool, which was social issues, and I think that you look at the makeup of the younger generation and there’s more of a libertarian view on social issues.

The whole article is worth a read, because it appears that the NRCC, which was a factor in the 2006 election in the 29th, is under-resourced and over-stretched for 2008.

Rochester's Channel 10 "I-Team" has a story on the cost and use of congressional mailers.  Of the Rochester-area Members of Congress, Randy Kuhl spends the most on mailings, $136,000 in 2006.

I haven't received my copy of Randy Kuhl's stimulus mailer yet, but Rochesterturning has a scan of the piece.

Evan Dawson had a post yesterday on the illogic of pork barrel spending, where he makes the following good point:

The incongruity seems to come from those who argue that government spends too much -- but then argue that their own Representative has a duty to bring home fistfuls of cash.  They don't seem to care to inspect the validity of each earmark; it's good enough that their Representative is bringing home something.  $100k for library tags in Greece?  Sure.  $1 million for a private college that is in no financial trouble?  Why not?

Reader Elmer sends today's Corning Leader column [pdf] from Managing Editor Joe Dunning. Dunning thinks Kuhl is in for a tougher run this time around. Money quote:

If you consider Bush one of the worst presidents ever -- think a foreign policy like Lyndon Johnson’s (Vietnam) and a domestic plan like Herbert Hoover’s (The Depression ) -- then it would be hard to look favorably on his supporters. That’s the battle Kuhl must overcome to get back to Washington.

The same page has an Iraq editorial that mentions calls for victory and notes that "it's impossible to know now when it might be deemed a success". That editorial concludes by saing that Bush's

successor must be someone who, on March 19, 2009, will observe this grim anniversary not by looking back, but by reporting progress on a plan to swiftly end this war, bring our troops home, and engage the United States as a diplomatic player -- rather than a ham-fisted bully -- in this critical region.

This is from a conservative newspaper that endorsed Kuhl in 2006. If you want to understand how things have changed since then in the most Republican part of the 29th district, look no further.