City Newspaper's Jeremy Moule has a wide-ranging and lengthy interview with Eric Massa on City's site. It covers the wars, dairy prices, healthcare reform and the economy. Massa "feels like a sergeant on the battlefield without a general" because of the lack of Presidential leadership on healthcare, and he's pretty pessimistic about the chances of a comprehensive healthcare reform bill passing.
The Corning Leader has Massa and Reed reaction to last night's speech. Both are "encouraged".
President Obama delivered big tonight, and his speech will have a big effect on the 29th district race.
In Massa's corner, the effect of the speech depends on the details of the public option that ultimately comes from the bill. While Obama clearly stated that a public option is a necessary part of any bill, he hedged a bit by naming co-ops as one possible implementation. Since the details of the public option was the main reason Massa opposed the current House bill, we'll see if the changes (if any) to that legislation that come from Obama's speech will be enough to push Massa into the supporter category.
Even more interesting is the effect of the speech on Republicans like Tom Reed. Obama endorsed tort reform, raised the possibility of co-ops, came out strongly for laws against the barring of pre-existing conditions, and pledged that he will only sign a bill that will be deficit neutral. This addresses all but one of Reed's laundry list. The remaining issue is Reed's support for small business tax incentives finance employee insurance. Obama says that 95% of small businesses will be exempt from the requirement that they provide insurance. There's not a lot of difference between those two stands.
Obama has put a great deal of pressure on members of his party, and members of the opposition, to be reasonable. It's going to be a fascinating few weeks, hopefully far different from the last month of sideshows and shouting.
The big event of the week is tonight's address by President Obama. Eric Massa has postponed his press conference until tomorrow, and he'll also be appearing on Fox and Friends at 6:45 AM.
Tom Reed did not postpone his press conference, and the Star-Gazette reports that he's hoping for tort reform. Hope is all that he can do, because his party's reluctance to engage on healthcare reform has cost them a seat at the table where they could push their agenda.
Here's a little more on the disaster declaration for flooding in the southeastern New York. And Tom Reed thinks we shouldn't spend any more stimulus money. Other than that, it's looking like a sunny weekend.
The Corning Leader, Star-Gazette, City Newspaper and D&C have reports about House Ag Committee Chair Collin Peterson's visit to the 29th. Topics discussed include:
The Amherst Times reports that flood-damaged areas of Cattaraugus, Chautauqua and Erie Counties have been declared disaster areas.
The mighty Gannett empire reports that Massa is interested in helping small business. Also, a wind farm in Steuben County got a $75 million stimulus grant.
Area bloggers have a couple of interesting town hall meeting reports. First, GranolaBox reports on the Potter town hall meeting, which was tame by current standards. And Rochester resident Tim Ellis blogs about his experience at the Victor town hall meeting on the Huffington Post.
The Corning Leader and the Star-Gazette attended last night's meeting in Horseheads. About 800 people showed up. The S-G's coverage includes a photo of a pair of senior citizens with the sign "Govt Health is Dead on Arrival". They must have run out of room for the rest of the slogan: "for others, not us".
WETM also has a short story about the meeting.
Today's Democrat and Chronicle carries an op-ed from a local physician who describes the atmosphere at the Victor town hall meeting:
I arrived at the town-hall meeting for Rep. Eric Massa, D-Corning, with an eagerness for respectful debate. I left with a sense of disgust and disappointment. The atmosphere was so vicious that any attempt at meaningful dialogue was met with perverse heckling including screams that our nation should have "dropped a nuke" on Iraq instead of spending three trillion dollars on the war, and someone screaming "give Obama's wife to the Insurance Industry!"
On my walk into the meeting, I stood next to a gentleman wearing a T-shirt with President Obama's face and a Hitler moustache. I heard him argue with a World War II veteran, who told him he should be ashamed of himself.
In other news, Massa will be holding a meeting in Canandaigua tomorrow with House Agriculture Committee Chair Collin Peterson. According to a press release, the meeting will be for Farm Bureau members only.
Update: This isn't the last town hall meeting. There's one more on Thursday at 5 at Hornell High School.