Massa began the call by pointing to Louise Slaughter's op-ed in
today's Democrat and Chronicle, which he believed made a good case
that drilling isn't the only answer to high gas prices.

The campaign season is heating up. We are 83 days and 11
hours from the election, and already in his first time out of the box,
Randy Kuhl is simply not telling the truth. He is running radio ads
in which he makes the statement that Randy Kuhl is the only candidate
who supports drilling for our energy needs now. That is simply
untrue.

In our first media buy, I made the decision to run a
positive campaign. In Randy Kuhl's first buy, he made the decision to
not tell the truth. In virtually every newspaper in the district,
I've been talking about responsible drilling.

Massa listed off 11 articles where his energy policy has been
discussed, and noted that his energy plan has been posted publicly on
his web site. "Every news organization in this Congressional District
knows the truth. I call for today for Randy Kuhl to take down his
dishonest and untrue radio ad."

Massa said that Kuhl has refused to debate him on substantive issues,
and called his DC appearance "grandstanding and gaming instead of
looking for solutions." Noting that today's Corning Leader carried an
government report estimating that offshore drilling will increase
production by 1% by 2030, he added "It's a great disservice to voters
of this district to knowingly tell them things that are not true."

I asked Massa if he felt that Kuhl's strategy was to get him to react,
to knock him back on his heels.

I don't feel like I'm on my heels. Their strategy
illustrates the reason that there will be a landslide in this
country. Americans are tired of the same Washington politics as
usual.

Massa called Kuhl's current strategy an Orwellian "big lie": Create
a big lie, propagate it as much as possible, and enough people will
believe you so you can squeak by at the polls.

Massa believes this strategy will backfire: "Nothing is clearer than
in 27 days in a row, the price of gas has gone down, and the value of
the dollar has increased." The issue is Bush's failed economic
policies, not drilling, he said.