So, I was pretty set on Spitzer.  I haven’t done a lot of hard research on either of them, but the narrative I’d gotten from word-of-mouth, the national blogs, and the ads was this: Spitzer’s a quixotic, white-horsed hero who goes after corporations and organizations trying to screw the little guy, while Suozzi’s running to the right of him, funded by the big businesses Spitzer’s pissed off, in a kind of revenge move.

A friend of mine said the story really is: we need someone who’s going to be a reformer in Albany, and since all the Albany insiders are supporting Spitzer, he’s going to be beholden to them and not rock the boat, while Suozzi can get in there and start kicking ass right and left.

Heavy-hitters like NYCO who have a pretty good finger on the pulse of upstate, believe that Spitzer will make a bad gov for upstaters, given his lack of focus on upstate issues during the debates (at least the one he did on NY-1 that didn’t even get broadcast in Buffalo) and Q&A sessions, and a preponderance of focus on downstate issues. 

[Update: NYCO corrected my misremembering in the comments: "I don’t believe that Spitzer will make a bad guv for upstaters, but I do want him to “be all that he can be”… "  Hear, hear.]

I didn’t catch the debate last night, but I was curious if anyone did and what their take was.  I’d also like folks to weigh in on who they like, and why.  (Even if they like Faso. I guess.)

(bumped. Willa is running against Joe Robach. A lot of folks like Joe, but if you look at his record via vote-smart, he has become startlingly more conservative the longer he’s been in office. For example, his “grade” from the Conservative Party went from 41 to 50 to 72 % from 2003 to 2005. RochesterTurning’s litmus test for getting our country, and state out of the mess we’re in is this: are you more progressive than your opponent? Based on this, RT heartily endorses Willa. -btp)

I am Willa Powell, Democratic Party candidate for the New York State Senate in the 56^th District, which covers Brighton, Rochester, Greece and Parma. I want to thank RochesterTurning.com for the endorsement. Given the opportunity to speak directly to the progressives of this district, I could talk about how the 56^th District is pro-choice, pro-responsible gun control, pro-social justice, and pro-reform (and it is), and Sen. Joe Robach, currently representing this district, is not. But you really need to see his record for yourself. Go to vote-smart.org.

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Fighting 29th has a nice, reality-based rundown on the ins and outs of Kuhl’s complaints about the latest MoveOn ad (which Kuhl, probably falsely, claims has been pulled). The bottom line: if Kuhl is not resposible for the votes mentioned in the MoveOn ad, then

it’s hard to see how he Kuhl has any responsibility for any of his votes. Moreover, there’s the broader issue of accountability for his party’s positions, regardless of the specifics of individual votes. Kuhl has voted with his party on almost every issue, including continued (and sometimes wasteful) funding of the war in Iraq. He sits on no committees relevant to the war. Other than his public pronoucements on the war, these votes are all his constituents have to judge him by. And, in real votes on germane amendments, he’s voted against increased oversight of defense contractors twice.

The Hornell Evening Tribune did a “get to know the candidate” piece on Eric Massa today.  No real shockers in there.  Here’s an exceprt:

During a visit to offices of The Evening Tribune Tuesday, Massa laid out his case. He feels American government is heading in the wrong direction and wants to change that. There are three areas he’s focused on in particular, including health care, balancing the budget and jobs.

“I’m driven primarily out of a push to build a better health system,” Massa said. “As a cancer survivor I believe this is a critical issue.”

The national press is picking up on Massa’s excoration of the Secretary of Defenselessness. Here’s what Massa had to say:

“After 21 months of trying to find something I can agree with Secretary Rumsfeld on, it is true: the American people are being lied to and I totally agree with Secretary Rumsfeld,” Eric Massa, a Navy veteran, said Wednesday. “What I disagree with is the fact that he’s the one doing the lying.”

This post is not about any of our local representatives — there is none that I would describe as “without decency”. Rather, it is about Donald Rumsfeld’s delusional, unAmerican, hateful “speech” from yesterday. This one’s got all the markings of good-old fashioned McCarthyism. Impuging the patriotism of your opponents, check. Comparisons to Hitler, check. Unsubtantiated fear-mongering, check. It’s got it all. And it’s disgusting. And it’s time for people — both Democrats and Republicans — to tell the White House that enough is enough. Rumsfeld needs to resign.

It’s not just Democrats that are saying this, it’s generals too, in case you’ve forgotten. Here’s what retired Major General (and Rochester resident) John Batiste had to say a few weeks ago:

Rumsfeld is responsible for taking us to war with a flawed war plan that ignored the realities of the region and the lessons of history. He had no strategy beyond taking down Saddam Hussein. His flawed thinking caused our great country to violate fundamental principles of war and set the conditions for the national embarrassment of Abu Ghraib. He allowed the insurgency to take root and grow to where it is today. He has driven our Army brigades, both active duty and National Guard, into a state of unprecedented unreadiness.

So I was at the Spitzer post debate event tonight. As you can imagine there was a tremendous amount of excitement in the air. I’d be interested in your take if anyone watched the actual debate - personally I didn’t like the format - not really a debate.

Nevertheless the post debate event was exciting. All the local Dems were there, speeches by most.

What I liked about Spitzer’s speech was that he recognized the Dems that are running for the House. Massa was there and Spitzer specifically called out Massa to a round of tremendous applause.

I also spoke with Massa who said something about an article that is being published in the Wapo tomorrow morning - a Democratic response to Rummys’ recent talking points about appeasement. Look for it tomorrow. He mentioned front page.
You can read about my conversation with Louise in the comments of the Geez Louise post.

The saga of the MoveOn ads just keeps getting stranger. The first ad, “Dumping Billions” did contain some inaccuracies, in our opinion (as well as that of Channel 13). The second act “Caught Red-Handed” was tough (and perhaps melodramatic) but truthful and fair. Here’s where things start to get strange. You may recall that the Kuhl campaign claimed that Channel 13 pulled the “Dumping Billions” commercial — a claim both Channel 13 and MoveOn.org deny. Now, Kuhl is claiming that all the local stations have pulled the second (and much less controversial ad) as well:

“We have contacted all the (television) media outlets in the district and told them the ads were false,” Kuhl said. “The ads are no longer running.”

MoveOn begs to differ:

“None of the ads have been pulled,” Braiman said. “They have not been taken off the air.”

Then they go back and forth a bit on Kuhl’s record. Kuhl, while he is most likely wrong about the ads being pulled (I don’t want to call it a “lie” — let’s cut him some slack, he’s on pain medication from his hip replacement surgery) does refrain from trying to link Massa to the ads:

Asked if he thought his Democratic opponent, Eric Massa of Corning, was complicit in the attack ads, Kuhl said he has no information that the Massa campaign is linked to MoveOn.org.

Update: Maybe Kuhl is just talking about the first ad (”Dumping Billions”) — that only ran for a couple days as far as I know.

Tom T and I bumped into each other at the Dan Maffei Fundraiser and got talking about how Louise Slaughter has yet to endorse either Maffei or Massa… doesn’t this seem odd to everyone? Louise Slaughter is clearly the most popular Democrat in all of Rochester, so why hasn’t she come forward to stand with her fellow Democrats in the 25th and 29th districts?

I just wrote her to ask… If enough of us contact her office (it’s a very short process), maybe we can convince her to change her stance.

Best,

-J

…and kicks off her brand new blog with a nice summary of the Randy Kuhl MoveOn ads. Good to see a veteran poster on the national blogs contributing to local progressive blogsprawl!

Note: to everyone waiting for something from me– I haven’t forgotten about you!  I’m digging out of the stuff that piled up the last 3 days while I was a waste product.  I’ll be getting to you shortly, once I deal with some work stuff.  “*ding*…now serving…number …27!  Would you like fries with that?”

So, I’ve been mostly out of it for the last 3 days with some kind of virus. And I couldn’t be happier to see RT doing just fine without me, although I got me a mess o’ potamia that piled up while I was out. While I was rolling around in my bed with a 101.3 fever, I had a lot of time to think about things. A lot. Of time. And although one of things was the WARM 101.3 jingle playing over and over in my head (aiieeee! make it stop!), one was about the whole abortion vs. forced birth debate that’s been going on for years in the US, brought to mind by reading stlo7’s post about his evangelical friend.

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Thomas Ricks, author of “Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq” said in a recent Washington Post on-line interview:

I’d say the book argues that you don’t get a mess as big as Iraq from the failings of one or two men, such as President Bush and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld.

Rather, I think there was a systemic failure….

I think that Congress was asleep at the wheel. That’s crucial. Congressional hearings provide oversight and accountability and (when done well) pump information into the American system. In other wars, you had hawks and doves. In this war you had the silence of the lambs.

Let’s break this down further in terms of incumbents and their opponents. In NY-29, Republican incumbent Randy Kuhl did visit Iraq, to his credit. On the other hand, he seems to think that oversight means you fly over the country and look down at it from above:

“When you fly over and you look down, we were 1,000 feet, and you see people in fields, farmers plowing fields, herding water buffalo’s. It’s life as usual.”

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We don’t cover NY-26 too much on this site. I figure that wiser, more Buffalo-centric minds like the brilliant Buffalo Pundit are on top of things. But I thought I’d share this recent tidbit from Douglas Turner at the Buffalo News:

Weeks ago Reynolds, heading the National Republican Congressional Committee, took a big calculated risk and decided not to challenge Davis, making his second run, for the Independence Party line in the 26th.

Instead of Reynolds, Davis will face Lockport attorney Robert M. Pusateri, said to be a Reynolds surrogate, in the Independence primary Sept. 12. The line was worth more than a fourth of Reynold’s plurality over Davis last time.

If Davis wins the Independence line, it could leave the Akron industrialist and a national Republican insider struggling over a tiny fraction - less than 5 percent - of the probable votes cast on Nov. 7.

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I was at lunch with someone who is opposite of me on what passes for the stereotypical spectrum. A passionate Evangelical, abortion is the hot button issue. “Hillary go home” and should be in jail for Vince Foster’s death and all rest. Votes Republican but is currently not a big fan of W and the rest of the Republicans. Not a fan of all. Basically is in the process of checking out of the political process because of absolute disgust but is very interested in the talking about politics.

So we are talking. I talk about all the taboo issues with an eye on trying to determine how this conflicted person will vote in November.
We finally get to local Congressional races. Kuhl is the representative. I suggest visiting Massa’s site (non-politician, outside Washington etc…). Here is the response.

“I took a look at Massa’s website and focused on the issues that he raised on the website. To be frank, he is a perfect Democrat because all of his issues are about blaming the Republicans and the current administration. Just about everything he promises to fix is the Republicans fault, and he says it that way too. Not that I’m a Randy Kuhl fan, but his website does not say the same about Democrats and whether you believe it or not, they are part of the problem too, just like the Republicians.” [sic]

How do you respond to this?

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Once again, our friends at the Fighting 29th are all over a story we know is important, but are too lazy to cover thoroughly:

Randy Kuhl’s office has announced millions of dollars of grants in the last month (here, here, here and here). These are routine grants, which probably would have happened no matter who was serving in the 29th.

I think he’s probably right that they’re “routine”, though I have no real idea. These total a little over a million dollars, which is not much by Washington standards (each district pays about $5 billion a year in federal taxes), but they sound relatively legit, so I’m glad they got awarded.