Over at the City paper, Krestia DeGeorge has a pretty good summary article up about the four local Congressional races (if you can call NY-28 a “race”). It points out that Louise Slaughter would become quite powerful in the event that Democrats take control of the House:

If the Democrats take control of the House, Slaughter’s seniority will pay big dividends. She would become the first woman in the nation’s history to chair the House Rules Committee. That may sound boring, but the committee deals with the kind of procedural details that mean the difference between a truly open democracy and a caricature of one.

Massa brings up the idea of a Monroe County caucus of sorts:

­”You know, Rochester was carved into four congressional districts trying to make sure that no Democrat would ever enjoy a safe seat,” says Eric Massa. “But this year we’re going to elect four Democrats. And for a city the size of Rochester to send its own Congressional caucus is very, very exciting. The much increased clout politically in Washington, DC, of the Rochester Congressional delegation is going to pay significant benefits not only for MonroeCounty but for the entire region.”

I think it’s fair to say that Kuhl, Walsh, and Reynolds have not been effective advocates for Monroe County — each has focused primarily on the parts of their district outside of Monroe County (the Southern Tier, Syracuse, and Buffalo, respectively). In Kuhl’s case, I’m not convinced he’s done much for the rest of his district either — a representative from an agricultural area shouldn’t have to be told about the important role immigrant workers play in the ag business.

All in all, a decent article, though I do have a bone to pick with it — after the fold…

DeGeorge writes (on the Consituent Dynamics polls the Kuhl people hate so much):

In any event, it is, after all, just one poll. Either campaign could clear things up by releasing its own internal polls, but by early this week neither had done that — which signals, if anything, that the race is close.

In fact, Constituent Dynamics has run not one but two polls. And why does the reporter (Krestia DeGeorge) confidently assert that both campaigns have run polls recently? Polls are expensive. The Massa people tell me they have not run one in quite some time. And they released the last one they did.

We should note that the Kuhl people have run at least one poll recently, per this statement:

“It (the Constituents Dynamics poll) doesn’t at all compute with any of our internal polling,” Van Wicklin added. “So we’ll just sort of discount it.”