[Judge Marianne] Furfure ruled Kuhl’s office was the public office of an elected official with no signs or public access restrictions. In addition, the trespass did not meet the standard for the misdemeanor charges because it did not occur in an area “fenced or otherwise enclosed ... to exclude intruders,” she said.
Attorney Ray Schlather, the legal advisor for the protesters, said the push by the county District Attorney’s office to make the offense “a fingerprintable crime” showed a lack of judgment and allowed the protesters to turn the charges into political theater.
“This should never gone before a jury,” Schlather said. “That lack of good judgment effectively played into the protesters’ hands.”
Readers might recall that a similar protest at Kuhl's Fairport office was defused when a clever policeman invited the protesters outside and locked the door behind them. If the Bath PD and Steuben County prosecutor had exercised the same good judgment, Steuben County taxpayers would have been spared the tens of thousands of dollars it cost to litigate this innocuous little sit-in.
]]>[Judge Marianne] Furfure ruled Kuhl’s office was the public office of an elected official with no signs or public access restrictions. In addition, the trespass did not meet the standard for the misdemeanor charges because it did not occur in an area “fenced or otherwise enclosed ... to exclude intruders,” she said.
Attorney Ray Schlather, the legal advisor for the protesters, said the push by the county District Attorney’s office to make the offense “a fingerprintable crime” showed a lack of judgment and allowed the protesters to turn the charges into political theater.
“This should never gone before a jury,” Schlather said. “That lack of good judgment effectively played into the protesters’ hands.”
Readers might recall that a similar protest at Kuhl's Fairport office was defused when a clever policeman invited the protesters outside and locked the door behind them. If the Bath PD and Steuben County prosecutor had exercised the same good judgment, Steuben County taxpayers would have been spared the tens of thousands of dollars it cost to litigate this innocuous little sit-in.
]]>Sean wonders if there will be a Massa/Kuhl III. I never got the impression that Randy Kuhl enjoyed fundraising or campaigning. A rematch by Kuhl would require a much bigger fundraising effort, since he wouldn't be able to count on as many "automatic" PAC donations running as a challenger. I just don't see a Kuhl challenge in 2010.
David Kubissa at the Star-Gazette sees hostility in Massa's recent fundraising letter.
]]>Sean wonders if there will be a Massa/Kuhl III. I never got the impression that Randy Kuhl enjoyed fundraising or campaigning. A rematch by Kuhl would require a much bigger fundraising effort, since he wouldn't be able to count on as many "automatic" PAC donations running as a challenger. I just don't see a Kuhl challenge in 2010.
David Kubissa at the Star-Gazette sees hostility in Massa's recent fundraising letter.
]]>Teams of lawyers representing Kuhl have already descended upon our district, and you can bet your last dollar that they will challenge every vote they can that was cast for Eric. With Kuhl's corporate backers, he has all the funds he needs to challenge the votes of thousands of our friends and neighbors. We need to fight to make sure that EVERY vote gets counted accurately and fairly, but to do that, we need your help.
(Emphasis in original.)
It might be worth comparing Massa's situation to that of a much closer race, the Minnesota Senate race. In that race, unlike this one, there's going to be a recount. Because Minnesota uses optical scan ballots, every original ballot will be re-scanned, and any rejected ballots will be hand-examined. That race has thousands of "undervotes", where the voter marked the ballot for President but not for Senator. That means that thousands of ballots may be disputed, and both sides will be able to argue about marks made in the wrong place on each of those ballots.
In this race, for better or worse, any voter mistakes by voters who used the lever voting machines can't be recovered. The only mistakes with regular (non-absentee) votes that could sink Massa's boat are multiple major errors by election workers who transcribed the tallies from the election machines, which is extremely unlikely.
The other possible route to a Kuhl victory is an unprecedented swing in absentee votes. It's hard to see how Kuhl can swing 4,400 votes out of the 20,000 absentee ballots cast. And I definitely don't see how Kuhl's team of lawyers will sway the tally appreciably. Accepted wisdom on voting errors is that the error rate is 1% or less. This means that something under 200 absentee ballots will be disputed. Even if Kuhl's crack attorneys push all of those votes into his total, he still isn't going to win the election.
Massa supporters may well believe that it's critical that Massa have the best possible legal representation, and Massa might be able to raise money based on that belief. But even if Kuhl has resurrected Clarence Darrow, I doubt that he'll be able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
]]>Teams of lawyers representing Kuhl have already descended upon our district, and you can bet your last dollar that they will challenge every vote they can that was cast for Eric. With Kuhl's corporate backers, he has all the funds he needs to challenge the votes of thousands of our friends and neighbors. We need to fight to make sure that EVERY vote gets counted accurately and fairly, but to do that, we need your help.
(Emphasis in original.)
It might be worth comparing Massa's situation to that of a much closer race, the Minnesota Senate race. In that race, unlike this one, there's going to be a recount. Because Minnesota uses optical scan ballots, every original ballot will be re-scanned, and any rejected ballots will be hand-examined. That race has thousands of "undervotes", where the voter marked the ballot for President but not for Senator. That means that thousands of ballots may be disputed, and both sides will be able to argue about marks made in the wrong place on each of those ballots.
In this race, for better or worse, any voter mistakes by voters who used the lever voting machines can't be recovered. The only mistakes with regular (non-absentee) votes that could sink Massa's boat are multiple major errors by election workers who transcribed the tallies from the election machines, which is extremely unlikely.
The other possible route to a Kuhl victory is an unprecedented swing in absentee votes. It's hard to see how Kuhl can swing 4,400 votes out of the 20,000 absentee ballots cast. And I definitely don't see how Kuhl's team of lawyers will sway the tally appreciably. Accepted wisdom on voting errors is that the error rate is 1% or less. This means that something under 200 absentee ballots will be disputed. Even if Kuhl's crack attorneys push all of those votes into his total, he still isn't going to win the election.
Massa supporters may well believe that it's critical that Massa have the best possible legal representation, and Massa might be able to raise money based on that belief. But even if Kuhl has resurrected Clarence Darrow, I doubt that he'll be able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
]]>Unlike last cycle, the DCCC poured real money into the 29th this year, spending almost $1 million on ads and mailers. This money was spent entirely on one message: Randy Kuhl voted for free trade legislation that hurt the district.
Whether that message resonated in the 29th is anyone's guess. Even though the TV ad contained one misleading claim (it tried to tie jobs lost because of NAFTA to Kuhl, who wasn't in Congress when NAFTA passed), that distortion didn't become a campaign issue. I assume part of the reason was that the NRCC released a distorted ad around the same time.
In that respect, Eric Massa was lucky. In neighboring NY-26, Howard Owens at the Batavian thinks the DCCC caused real damage:
Whatever chance Kryzan had, the DCCC killed it. First, the negative ads were over the top and in no way truthful. Second, they also crowded out Kryzan's message and didn't allow Alice to be Alice. In the end, they played right into the Lee/GOP strategy of muting Kryzan's plans and policy voice.
The DCCC spent almost $2 million on that race.
I used to think Massa was unlucky because the DCCC wouldn't recognize that the 29th was winnable and only committed money at the last minute. Now I think he's lucky that the DCCC didn't spend more in the 29th. Their cookie-cutter, misleading ads and one-size-fits-all message are often a hindrance, not a help, to the candidates they are trying to support.
]]>Unlike last cycle, the DCCC poured real money into the 29th this year, spending almost $1 million on ads and mailers. This money was spent entirely on one message: Randy Kuhl voted for free trade legislation that hurt the district.
Whether that message resonated in the 29th is anyone's guess. Even though the TV ad contained one misleading claim (it tried to tie jobs lost because of NAFTA to Kuhl, who wasn't in Congress when NAFTA passed), that distortion didn't become a campaign issue. I assume part of the reason was that the NRCC released a distorted ad around the same time.
In that respect, Eric Massa was lucky. In neighboring NY-26, Howard Owens at the Batavian thinks the DCCC caused real damage:
Whatever chance Kryzan had, the DCCC killed it. First, the negative ads were over the top and in no way truthful. Second, they also crowded out Kryzan's message and didn't allow Alice to be Alice. In the end, they played right into the Lee/GOP strategy of muting Kryzan's plans and policy voice.
The DCCC spent almost $2 million on that race.
I used to think Massa was unlucky because the DCCC wouldn't recognize that the 29th was winnable and only committed money at the last minute. Now I think he's lucky that the DCCC didn't spend more in the 29th. Their cookie-cutter, misleading ads and one-size-fits-all message are often a hindrance, not a help, to the candidates they are trying to support.
]]>Randy Kuhl was in some ways above-average, because he had a 20+ year relationship with constituents in the Southern Tier. Randy is a household name there, yet his loss in some Southern Tier counties lost him the election. My view is that Randy lost because he lost that connection.
]]>Randy Kuhl was in some ways above-average, because he had a 20+ year relationship with constituents in the Southern Tier. Randy is a household name there, yet his loss in some Southern Tier counties lost him the election. My view is that Randy lost because he lost that connection.
In 2006, Randy made and kept a promise to visit every town in the district. In 2008, Randy moved away from that promise. Because of a few raucous town hall meetings, Randy chose to turn what were open forums into appointment-only meetings.
Not only did Kuhl essentially curtail town-hall meetings, he compounded the problem by pretending that the new, appointment-only charades were equivalent to the old, open meetings. This just isn't true, and it reflects an unfortunate habit of Kuhl's: trying to have it both ways.
The worst aspect of Kuhl ducking town-hall meetings was how weak it made Randy look. If a few noisy radicals in Monroe County cause him to back away from a lifetime commitment to constituent interaction, voters start to wonder if Randy can stand up for them in the far tougher environs of Washington, DC.
Kuhl's refusal to debate Massa in an open forum fed into both the alienation from his constituents and the appearance of weakness. It's especially damaging that Kuhl refused to participate in the Leader/WETM debate, which was sponsored by two widely-respected Southern Tier media organizations.
Kuhl's whole handling of the debate controversy turned what could have been a negative for Massa into a positive for him. Whenever Massa brought up the issue, Kuhl attacked him for begin an eternal candidate, and for being a carpetbagger. Those attacks might have had some traction, but Massa also proved that he was tough enough to challenge the most powerful man in the Southern Tier. Kuhl could have made the whole thing go away by agreeing early on to a reasonable set of debates. Instead, Massa was able to drag it out, and look like a fighter for doing so.
The debate conversation was typical of the whole Kuhl/Massa conversation in the last two years. Massa would dare, and Kuhl would ask "How dare you?" In a time of economic uncertainty, voters prefer the candidate who appears tough and daring, not defensive.
Kuhl was very proud of his minority whip appointment in 2007, and it's clear that hanging out with the Republican leadership had a distinct impact on his rhetoric and campaign strategy. It's pretty easy to trace one of Kuhl's biggest blunders, ending town hall meetings, back to the bad advice he got from his new Republican buddies. In early 2007, at one of the raucous Monroe County town hall meetings, Kuhl noted that many of his friends in Congress criticized him for having a meeting in every town in the district. My thought at the time was that Randy needed some new friends -- that anyone who mistook one of his Randy's strengths for a weakness didn't understand Randy or the 29th.
I didn't hear his remarks at his "victory party" Tuesday night, but I'm told that San Francisco liberalism and Nancy Pelosi were heavily featured. Randy stuck to those talking points to the bitter end, and while they may have motivated the core of the base, the focus on Pelosi is another symptom of how Randy's new friends didn't help him much. Like every Republican, Randy was running against "change", a word emblazoned on Eric Massa's yard signs and embedded in the Obama campaign. Hating Nancy Pelosi is not a strategy for countering a change message.
It really is a shame about Randy. He's a decent guy with a long record of service. I think the 2006 Randy Kuhl might just have won this election. The 2008 Kuhl was just a little too close to DC, and bit too far from the Southern Tier, to pull it off.
]]>Eric Massa and his staff have treated me in an exemplary fashion. I was invited to press conferences, put on the same press release list as district reporters, and questions I asked via email was answered quickly. Massa has a first-rate press operation, and it was a major part of his victory. Thanks especially to Jared Smith, Massa's Communications Director, who went out of his way to be helpful.
Randy Kuhl's staff could have chosen to ignore me, but they, too, responded to queries quickly and sent press releases. I understand why they didn't invite me to his press conferences, but other than that, I have no complaints. Justin Stokes, Kuhl's Campaign Manager, was very helpful, and Meghan Tisinger, his Communications Director, was not only courteous, she would also point out errors in posts, which I greatly appreciated.
A Congressional campaign or office is a direct reflection of the candidate or Member of Congress. I have a few critical things to say about the candidates, but that's no reflection on their staffs. Both staffs worked hard on this campaign. Any mistakes I saw were strategic, and the fault of the candidates, not the staffs.
]]>Eric Massa and his staff have treated me in an exemplary fashion. I was invited to press conferences, put on the same press release list as district reporters, and questions I asked via email was answered quickly. Massa has a first-rate press operation, and it was a major part of his victory. Thanks especially to Jared Smith, Massa's Communications Director, who went out of his way to be helpful.
Randy Kuhl's staff could have chosen to ignore me, but they, too, responded to queries quickly and sent press releases. I understand why they didn't invite me to his press conferences, but other than that, I have no complaints. Justin Stokes, Kuhl's Campaign Manager, was very helpful, and Meghan Tisinger, his Communications Director, was not only courteous, she would also point out errors in posts, which I greatly appreciated.
A Congressional campaign or office is a direct reflection of the candidate or Member of Congress. I have a few critical things to say about the candidates, but that's no reflection on their staffs. Both staffs worked hard on this campaign. Any mistakes I saw were strategic, and the fault of the candidates, not the staffs.
]]>Anyone who's interacted with Massa in unscripted circumstances is aware of the limitations of intellect and social personality skills that set up Massa nicely for public embarrassment.
In this statement, Philbrick commits the same error that lost Randy Kuhl the election: believing the caricature of Massa that Republicans tried to make stick for the last two elections.
Contrary to what you read in comments by some Republicans here and elsewhere, Massa is neither dumb nor socially retarded. I've spent hours listening to him answer questions from the press, and I've asked him a few tough ones myself. I've heard a few dumb things come out of his mouth, but not many. He's no Joe Biden.
Unlike a lot of politicians, Massa writes his own script and stays on it. Republicans might not like the script, but they shouldn't believe Massa lacks intelligence.
That said, Massa's definitely an acquired taste. The way I put it is that his volume knob is always at 11. Judging from election results, it appears that a number of Republicans actually like the guy. The Republican Massa voters I've heard from all pointed to his personality as one of the reasons they voted for him. They felt that he would be an independent voice and a "good fighter" (exact quote).
In four years of almost constant campaigning in the Southern Tier, Massa answered a lot of tough questions from Republicans. From what I've seen, he enjoys it. A few questions at town meetings aren't going to derail Massa's election.
What's going to stop Massa in two years is a good Republican candidate who can raise money and articulate a positive agenda that addresses real issues. He or she will have to be accepted in the Southern Tier and the Rochester suburbs. This candidate will need to spend a lot of time working the district.
Does such a Republican exist? I challenge Mustard Street and the other conservative bloggers in the area to name one person who has the talent and the grit to unseat Massa.
]]>Anyone who's interacted with Massa in unscripted circumstances is aware of the limitations of intellect and social personality skills that set up Massa nicely for public embarrassment.
In this statement, Philbrick commits the same error that lost Randy Kuhl the election: believing the caricature of Massa that Republicans tried to make stick for the last two elections.
Contrary to what you read in comments by some Republicans here and elsewhere, Massa is neither dumb nor socially retarded. I've spent hours listening to him answer questions from the press, and I've asked him a few tough ones myself. I've heard a few dumb things come out of his mouth, but not many. He's no Joe Biden.
Unlike a lot of politicians, Massa writes his own script and stays on it. Republicans might not like the script, but they shouldn't believe Massa lacks intelligence.
That said, Massa's definitely an acquired taste. The way I put it is that his volume knob is always at 11. Judging from election results, it appears that a number of Republicans actually like the guy. The Republican Massa voters I've heard from all pointed to his personality as one of the reasons they voted for him. They felt that he would be an independent voice and a "good fighter" (exact quote).
In four years of almost constant campaigning in the Southern Tier, Massa answered a lot of tough questions from Republicans. From what I've seen, he enjoys it. A few questions at town meetings aren't going to derail Massa's election.
What's going to stop Massa in two years is a good Republican candidate who can raise money and articulate a positive agenda that addresses real issues. He or she will have to be accepted in the Southern Tier and the Rochester suburbs. This candidate will need to spend a lot of time working the district.
Does such a Republican exist? I challenge Mustard Street and the other conservative bloggers in the area to name one person who has the talent and the grit to unseat Massa.
]]>The process, dictated by our laws, will be orderly, fair, and will take place within a matter of days. We won’t know for a little while who won this race, but at the end of the day, we will know that the voice of the electorate was clearly heard.
In 2006, Eric Massa exercised his rights as a candidate and waited for all votes to be counted before conceding. In 2008, Randy Kuhl is doing the same. That's a powerful statement about the rule of law.
]]>The process, dictated by our laws, will be orderly, fair, and will take place within a matter of days. We won’t know for a little while who won this race, but at the end of the day, we will know that the voice of the electorate was clearly heard.
In 2006, Eric Massa exercised his rights as a candidate and waited for all votes to be counted before conceding. In 2008, Randy Kuhl is doing the same. That's a powerful statement about the rule of law.
]]>Sean Carroll: Just got done talking Amo Houghton - and he just got here after visiting with Eric Massa!
Evan Dawson: Sean -- WOW WOW WOW. And why was he with Massa?
Sean Carroll: said he respects him - "stands for the right things" even though he's on the other side of the aisle. said he's still pulling for Randy, but after all "we're all Americans"
Amo Houghton would have racked up another 60/40 or 70/30 win last night against almost any Democrat, probably with my vote. If Republicans want to come back in New York State, they need to take a serious look at what Amo did right and what Randy Kuhl did wrong.
]]>Sean Carroll: Just got done talking Amo Houghton - and he just got here after visiting with Eric Massa!
Evan Dawson: Sean -- WOW WOW WOW. And why was he with Massa?
Sean Carroll: said he respects him - "stands for the right things" even though he's on the other side of the aisle. said he's still pulling for Randy, but after all "we're all Americans"
Amo Houghton would have racked up another 60/40 or 70/30 win last night against almost any Democrat, probably with my vote. If Republicans want to come back in New York State, they need to take a serious look at what Amo did right and what Randy Kuhl did wrong.
]]>In 2006, Kuhl won every Southern Tier county. This year, Massa won all the Southern Tier but Yates, Steuben and Schuyler. His margin of victory in Monroe was about the same as in '06, and he once again narrowly lost Ontario. Without the boost from those Tier counties, Randy Kuhl would have been re-elected.
Most of those counties are heavily Republican, so it's likely that Massa's margin of victory came not only from independent voters, but also from Republicans who were sending their party a message. It's also clear evidence that Massa's four years of appearances at Rotary meetings, union halls and town celebrations made a difference.
]]>In 2006, Kuhl won every Southern Tier county. This year, Massa won all the Southern Tier but Yates, Steuben and Schuyler. His margin of victory in Monroe was about the same as in '06, and he once again narrowly lost Ontario. Without the boost from those Tier counties, Randy Kuhl would have been re-elected.
Most of those counties are heavily Republican, so it's likely that Massa's margin of victory came not only from independent voters, but also from Republicans who were sending their party a message. It's also clear evidence that Massa's four years of appearances at Rotary meetings, union halls and town celebrations made a difference.
]]>