The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

This morning's Massa press conference immediately followed a joint press conference with Democratic candidates Dan Maffei [NY-25] and Jon Powers [NY-26]. The subject of the conference was jobs and the future of children in Western New York.

I've asked for a copy of the plan, and when I receive it, I'll share the details with readers. In the meantime, here's Massa's take on it:

The Messenger-Post's money story gets it about right: this is a close race. I've looked through the Massa and Kuhl fundraising reports, and both reflect tough realities for each candidate.

Massa's hard reality is that his nut is much bigger than Kuhl's. He is running two fully-staffed campaign offices, and his payroll is bigger than Kuhl's. One of the many benefits of incumbency is that Kuhl can have a presence throughout the district without spending a penny. Massa doesn't have that luxury, and he spent $120K more than Kuhl this cycle, mainly on office expenses.

Kuhl's burden is that PACs aren't going to cut it. Last cycle, he got twice as much money from PACs as he did from individuals. This quarter, those numbers were almost even. At this point in 2006, he had almost $100K more in PAC money than he did at the end of June.

Kuhl is almost even with where he was last cycle, and he's had to make up the PAC shortfall by soliciting big-money donors in the district. Though his effort there is impressive, he doesn't seem to be able to match Massa's volume of small-money donors. This quarter, 30% of Massa's donors gave less than $250, versus 15% of Kuhl's. Massa gets a number of contributions via ActBlue, a clearinghouse for Democrats who want to give to a number of different candidates.

Overall, Kuhl is almost exactly where he was in 2006. Massa has raised almost three times what he did in 2006. If the trend continues, Massa will surpass his $3 million goal, which is double what Kuhl raised in 2006.

The Kuhl campaign has issued a press release stating that they raised $333K last quarter. His numbers have not hit the FEC website as of this post.

Kuhl's cash on hand at the end of the last quarter was $365K, so Kuhl probably ended the quarter with less cash on hand than Massa.

Update: Kuhl's report has been posted. According to the FEC, Kuhl raised $334K last quarter, spent $81K, and ends the quarter with $619K cash on hand.

The Massa campaign's fundraising report just hit the FEC website. Massa raised $290K last quarter, spent $203K, and has $652K on hand.

The Messenger-Post has a detailed piece on Randy Kuhl's claim that legislation can lower gas prices to $1.98/gallon. Reporter Julie Sherwood interviews three experts who disagree with Kuhl.

Liz Benjamin reports that Republicans are trying to tie Charlie Rangel [NY-15] to Eric Massa and other candidates for whom he's raised funds. Rangel has some rent-controlled apartments in New York for which he's paying less than the going market rate. You can read Rangel's defense here. I'm not an expert in rent control, but I thought that the whole point of the law was to allow people to keep renting at below-market rates.

Rochesterturning has a post about Massa's quick response when it appeared that some campaign donations were accidentally channeled to his campaign.

Today's Democrat and Chronicle has a analysis piece about Randy Kuhl's energy bill. It contrasts the Republicans' plan to blame Congress for high energy costs with some polling data. Polls show that Americans blame oil companies, President Bush, foreign oil producing nations and Congress, in that order.

The Kuhl Campaign announced that their petition filing includes over 11,000 signatures, which shows the strength of Republican organization, especially in the Southern Tier (that's an assumption). This is roughly 3,000 more than the Massa campaign reported Wednesday.

WETM has a story on petition filing in the Elmira area. Along with mentioning Massa and Kuhl's petitions, WETM reports that only Republican State Senator George Winner will have a challenger. Republican Assemblymen Bacalles and O'Meara will run unopposed this year.

After the break, I've embedded Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig's take on the popularity of Congress, which, as was discussed earlier, is in single digits. For Lessig, it's all about the money.

The Buffalo News reports that Senator Chuck Schumer is the last-chance Texaco for full funding of the West Valley Demonstration Project cleanup. West Valley is an abandoned, contaminated nuclear fuel reprocessing facility in Cattaraugus County. The House Appropriations Committee has allocated $23 million less than the amount requested by Randy Kuhl.

The Massa campaign says that they've filed petitions containing 7,209 signatures, up over 1,000 from 2006. As reported here earlier, Yates County contributed over 1,000 of those signatures. A little over 3,000 people voted for Massa in Yates County in 2006, so it's fair to say the Yates County Democrats are energized.

Today's Massa press conference covered veterans' issues and, of course, energy.

Randy Kuhl's Veterans' Mental Health Caucus rates a skeptical editorial from the Messenger-Post, hometown paper for the Canandaigua VA center specializing in psychiatric care. Nut graphs:

An honest discussion of troops’ mental health begins with the decision to engage in two long-term occupations halfway around the globe with an all-volunteer military and continues with the wait and red tape to get services once they return. We hope this is not a broader task than the members of Kuhl’s House caucus had bargained for.

Awareness is fine, but conviction and action would be more appropriate here.

Reader Elmer sends a link to a Rasmussen poll showing that the approval rating of Congress is now in single digits.

Any Republican reading that poll should be worried, because Democrats have not been in control for very long. Though Republicans are definitely spinning each and every problem as the fault of the newly-elected Democrats, most of what we're reaping today was sown before Democrats took over last year. That said, any Democratic challenger reading the poll should conclude that running against the system, which includes opposing some current Democratic positions in Congress, is a smart move.

Update: I missed this earlier, but despite the 9% overall Congressional approval rating, Democrats still have a 12% lead in Rasmussen's generic Congressional ballot question.