Oil, Petitions and Our Opinion of Congress

Today's Democrat and Chronicle has a analysis piece about Randy Kuhl's energy bill. It contrasts the Republicans' plan to blame Congress for high energy costs with some polling data. Polls show that Americans blame oil companies, President Bush, foreign oil producing nations and Congress, in that order.

The Kuhl Campaign announced that their petition filing includes over 11,000 signatures, which shows the strength of Republican organization, especially in the Southern Tier (that's an assumption). This is roughly 3,000 more than the Massa campaign reported Wednesday.

WETM has a story on petition filing in the Elmira area. Along with mentioning Massa and Kuhl's petitions, WETM reports that only Republican State Senator George Winner will have a challenger. Republican Assemblymen Bacalles and O'Meara will run unopposed this year.

After the break, I've embedded Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig's take on the popularity of Congress, which, as was discussed earlier, is in single digits. For Lessig, it's all about the money.