The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

Eliot Spitzer's plan to visit Elmira made today's New York Times.   A report of the actual visit is now posted on the Elmira Star-Gazette site.   The Times story points out that Kuhl is the New York congressman on the receiving end of the biggest media barrage, with TV, radio and robo-calls.   At the press conference, Spitzer's remarks were similar to those made frequently by Massa in the past:  Congressional health insurance is the best around, and S-CHIP could be funded by a few days of the cost of the war in Iraq.

The Hornell Evening Tribune carries a back-and-forth between Eric Massa and Randy Kuhl in yesterday's edition.  The disagreement begins with S-CHIP and the role of the tobacco lobby, moves on to the MoveOn.org ad on General Petraeus, and finishes the question of whether Kuhl is going to declare his candidacy.

Reader Kathy writes to say that Governor Eliot Spitzer will hold a press conference in Elmira tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. to ask Randy Kuhl to change his S-CHIP vote.  Eric Massa will also participate in the event, which will be held at Southern Tier Pediatrics. 

The Associated Press has a good round-up of reaction to Governor Spitzer's move to issue licenses to illegal immigrants.  Randy Kuhl has made this an issue, and Eric Massa also opposes it.  According to the AP, they have a lot of company.

This morning's New York Times' S-CHIP story leads with Randy Kuhl saying he's unlikely to change his position, despite a phone call from Eliot Spitzer urging him to "come over to the dark side."  The Times also puts a price tag on the Americans United ad campaign, which will spend $1 million on a combined national (generic) and local (targeted) ad campaign.

Congressional Quarterly has posted an in-depth story on the 29th. One interesting fact: Kuhl's CQ-calculated rating of votes with the President has fallen from 90% in his first term to 66% so far this year.

Local bloggers, and both Rochester and Southern Tier television stations, covered protests against the Bush S-CHIP veto yesterday. Rochesterturning carries video interviews with a couple of the protesters. Rochester's channel 13 has a short story with pictures documenting the protest at Kuhl's field office in Fairport. And Elmira's Channel 34 36 has a story about a protest in Elmira.

Update: The Ithaca Journal has more coverage, and Eric Massa has a letter about S-CHIP in the Elmira Star-Gazette.

Reader Elmer sends Randy Kuhl's S-CHIP op-ed [pdf] from the Corning Leader. Kuhl calls S-CHIP "backdoor socialization". Kuhl also made the Bloomberg article about S-CHIP this morning.

In the red-meat-for-the-base department, reader Vincent sends a video of Eric Massa "calling out" Rush Limbaugh. You can see it after the break:

Today's Massa press conference made the short trip from S-CHIP to rubberstamping and back again.

Massa began by saying that the Republicans are trying to frame the S-CHIP conversation as one about national health insurance, "when in reality it's an argument over the tobacco companies versus toddlers. It's about whether or not kids, no matter how much money their parents make, should be allowed to see a doctor." Massa characterized Kuhl as "two-faced", pointing to the Time magazine article where he said that he's not voting against it, he's actually voting for it.

Noting that Kuhl has been denying that he's a "rubberstamp", Massa said that reminded him of "a child with a baseball bat [...] who says he didn't break the window". Massa pointed to Kuhl's Star-Gazette op-ed, which included a list of votes that Kuhl claimed were against the President. "The vast majority of those votes were supported by the President -- [for example] Raising minimum wage was supported by the President. On every vote that matters, Randy Kuhl is super-glued to George Bush."

Massa said that today's veto of S-CHIP gives Kuhl a choice: "flip-flop or be super-glued to the President. A man who said he'd bring home the bacon is voting against kids in the district."

Massa also pointed out the inconsistency between Kuhl's complaints that Congress isn't getting things done, and his taking credit for things that do get done. "This kind of disingenuousness [...] serves no one."

I asked Massa a couple of questions. First, I asked him what he thought about Kuhl's view that the cigarette tax that partially finances S-CHIP is unfair to the poor. He said that, in his experience, "even people who are hardened smokers say that if the cost of cigarettes are part of getting children to the doctor, they're worth it."

I also asked Massa about his take on New York issuing illegal immigrants drivers' licenses. He noted that Kuhl is only raising this issue because he doesn't want to talk about his voting record, and that Kuhl often responds on other matters by saying that something is a state issue. That said, Massa disagrees with Governor Spitzer. He thinks it is wrong for the government to "recognize status with legal documents". However, "we need true immigration reform. I believe I stand with the Governor on that."

Julie Sherwood from the Messenger-Post, the other person on the call, asked Massa to quantify the number of children in the 29th helped by S-CHIP. Massa said that he didn't have those numbers, but his press secretary is going to find them.

As part of the call, Massa mentioned his appearance in Time and Esquire, which he said surprised him. It also surprised his Mother, who called to ask him why he was in a risqué magazine like Esquire.

Time Magazine has posted an article on the political ramifications of S-CHIP. It leads with a quote from Eric Massa:

Democrat Eric Massa happened to be in Washington last week for a fundraiser for his bid to challenge Rep. Randy Kuhl (pronounced "cool"), a Republican from upstate New York, for his seat next year, and he couldn't believe his good fortune. As his potential opponent voted against the expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Plans (SCHIP), Massa felt like he was watching Kuhl commit "political suicide" for all to see on C-SPAN.

The article also says that Massa is making S-CHIP his top priority.

The DCCC has begun running radio ads and robo-calls to publicize Randy Kuhl's vote against S-CHIP. Here's the audio [wmv] of the ad. The DCCC press release says the ads will run for a week, but it doesn't include the size of the ad buy.

The ad says that S-CHIP is "funded by a 61 cent increase in the tobacco tax." It should say partially funded, because that tax increase isn't enough to pay for the entire expansion. Kuhl seems to think that this increase is a negative: one of his blog postings links to an AP article titled "Poor Smokers Would Pay for Health Bill".

Finally, Kuhl's office also posted a short video of Randy's one-minute floor speech last Wednesday. The topic is New York State drivers licenses for illegal immigrants (a topic I covered here). Kuhl made this speech during the "one minute speech" portion of the House's daily calendar. Video after the break: