Corning Leader Managing Editor Joe Dunning has a column [pdf] on the "Kuhl, Massa tiff" which is, as usual, smart and perceptive. Thanks to Reader Elmer for sending it in.
The Salamanca Press was founded in 1867 and is now on the web. Here's a recent story about Massa stumping at Kill Buck in the Southeastern corner of the district.
Comments
Dunning hit the nail on the head. Despite all the partisan comments here (including mine), both men have taken a hit by what happened. Kuhl could have made hay with what Massa did, but didn't know enough to keep his mouth shut.
I agree - he gave both candidates good advice, too. Massa needs to soften his persona, and Kuhl needs to be more disarming/stop getting so easily rattled.
I'm a little disappointed that a blog that calls itself "Fighting29th" would recommend that candidates soften their personae and stop getting rattled. Maybe you should rename this the "PolitelyDebating29th".
(By the way, you have an extremely elitist spell-checker; it rejected "personas" but accepted "personae". )
Though I prefer "The Milquetoast 29th" to your suggestion, you realize I'm just asking them to fight smarter, not to stop fighting.
(The spell checker is built into your elitist browser, btw, not my elitist site.)
My ignorance of the the basics of internet spell-checking just goes to show I'm a regular guy, not an elitist.
You guys are too funny!
once again, I repeat, that had Kuhl known when we left the State Senate to run for Congress that every campaign and every step of his in Congress would be played out in the public eye, and that he would have to consistently campaign, he never would have left the State Senate. His quality of life was really much better there. Massa is just trying to get him to snap, and eventually it seems, someone will in this age of youtube.
Interesting observation. I would argue that the tragedy here is that people don't pay enough attention to what goes on in the State Senate. Every step a State Senator or Congressman makes should be scrutinized. I don't mean their personal lives (and in this case, Randy's has escaped scrutiny in the last two years), I mean their policies. There's too much at stake here to ignore.
You're right, and part of the reason is lack of a strong opposition party.
I was almost sick to my stomach last week when the governor, the senate and the assembly were patting themselves on the back over starting to "fix" the state's financial problems. Many people will fall for this even though the governor (as part of the senate), the senate and the assembly created the mess we are in in the first place. People blindly vote for incumbents too often only due to name recognition. I would say that most of the voters have no clue.
I think Mr. Dunning hit it exactly right. But as far as this being 'a race too close to call'? The political 'junkie' in me wishes it were so, but methinks that Mr. Massa's hot-head techniques, coupled with McCain at the top of the ticket, shape this thing up as a reasonably easy Kuhl re-election.