The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has released a new ad, embedded below:

Reader Tom sends today's Corning Leader story [gif] about Randy Kuhl's new poll, which shows Kuhl leading by 10 points. The poll has a small sample size (300 voters), and the Leader story doesn't indicate when the poll was in the field.

Kuhl's poll contradicts last week's findings by two independent pollsters, who found that Kuhl was behind by 6-7 points.

Stuart Rothenberg has upgraded the 29th race to "Toss-Up/Lean Democratic" from "Toss-Up/Lean Republican". Rothenberg is pretty bullish on the Democrats' prospects for Congressional pick-ups: he predicts a gain of 25-30 seats.

Two other raters, Charlie Cook and Congressional Quarterly both have the race leaning Republican. Neither of them are forecasting as big a Democratic gain as Rothenberg.

I was able to watch most of the WENY/Star-Gazette debate. Most of the questions and answers were similar to the 13-WHAM debate, which is understandable. Random observations:

• Near the beginning of the debate, Kuhl thanked WENY for having a "free and open debate" in contrast to what WETM and the Leader were willing to do. I guess Kuhl is at war with one of the most influential, and most conservative, newspapers in the Southern Tier. I don't understand it, but there you have it.
• There were more questions about gas prices than the 13-WHAM debate. I don't know if that indicates more concern about that in the Southern Tier, or it's just moderator choice.
• At the beginning of the debate, Massa told watchers to get a piece of paper and mark an "X" every time Kuhl said Massa would raise taxes. Kuhl said that people ought to mark an "X" every time Massa linked him to President Bush. I think that cut down on both of those little sayings.
• Randy Kuhl doesn't understand, or doesn't want to understand, privatizing social security. He supports partial privatization, but denies that's what it is. Also, any return on investment that's better than what the government gets implies risk. Politicians always gloss over the details when private accounts are mentioned. Either we accept that people can invest their social security money, and possibly lose some of it, or we reimburse those who are bad investors.
• Unlike the 13-WHAM debate, the moderators in this debate were clockwatchers. They cut off a lot of good discussion. The more clockwatching, the lower quality of debate.
• Randy talked about cellulosic ethanol in the limousine with Bush? No, he didn't. Kuhl's conversion to cellulosic ethanol happened this year.
• Kuhl is for term limits. I hadn't heard that before.
• In general, the earmarks conversation really went off the rails. I have no idea why Massa thinks that the bowling alley in Canandaigua is such a powerful example, but I really don't see it. Randy wants to abolish the appropriations committee? It's not the committee that's the problem, its the rules under which it functions.
• Even worse than clock watching is "sprint rounds". "How and when do you withdraw troops from Iraq, in 30 seconds?" That was just awful.

Sean Carroll has posted the answers to six user questions he didn't get to ask at Friday's debate on the 13-WHAM blog.

Tonight's Massa/Kuhl debate will be broadcast live at 7 p.m. on WENY and the Star-Gazette website.