Round 2 of Maffei/Walsh
Maffei and Walsh debated again last night. It was more of the same. One thing I’ve realized is that Walsh isn’t like the other candidates around here: Kuhl, Reynolds, Davis, Slaughter, Maffei, and Massa are all people, who — love them or hate them — are where they are because of their own accomplishments (such as they are, in some cases). Walsh is only in Congress because people liked his father. He bristles when criticized, wanders off subject to defend himself and the things he holds dear (such as the myth that the Carrier Corporation is still an economic powerhouse), and actually seems to believe his own talking points (unlike Kuhl, for example, who often shrugs amiably when he’s called on a whopper). There is no way Jim Walsh would have been elected to Congress without the family name.
Last night’s debate featured two major themes: Maffei calling Walsh a rubber stamper, and Walsh calling Maffei a carpetbagger. Here’s a somewhat more detailed rundown:
- Walsh makes no effort to defend himself from the charges that he is nothing more than a George Bush surrogate. He calls himself “independent” but offers no evidence to support this claim. I’m not sure why since there must be something he’s done that can be construed as standing up to Bush.
Walsh’s attacks on Maffei for being a “carpetbagger” are a bit more complex. They followed more or less the same pattern in both debates:
- * Walsh calls Maffei a carpetbagger. Maffei responds by saying that he is, to quote even the pro-Republican Post-Standard, “a Nottingham High School graduate with Syracuse roots four generations deep.” Walsh gives up that direct line of attack.
- * Walsh claims Maffei doesn’t know enough about the local economy. Maffei responds by saying the local economy is not as strong as it should be and that he’ll work to change that. Walsh then says something strange and inexplicable to the contrary. Tonight, it was that the Carrier Corporation was still very important to the local economy because it employs a whopping 1600 people locally. For purposes of comparison, Kodak employs 14,000 and that’s down from the 60,000 it once employed.
- * Walsh latches onto something a little more substantive — attacking Maffei for not voting in local elections. But he does this in the most ineffective way possible: he lists out all the elections Maffei did vote in. I’m not making this up. Walsh goes after Maffei by saying “you voted in 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2004″ and then adding that Maffie missed some local elections in the odd years.
- * Walsh talked about Charlie Rangel a lot to show that Maffei was “out of touch” with upstate values, whatever that is supposed to mean. How many people in the district know who Charlie Rangel is? Maffei pretty much ignored this one except to note that Charlie Rangel has a bronze star.
Related posts:
What is the Walsh family known for?
Walsh’s father was the Republican Congressman for this district before him… Jimbo basically slid into the job riding daddy’s coattails.
Living in Webster, and being represented by that idiot Walsh, I’d like to ask him just what in the hell he knows about my local economy.