NY-29: Chinatown
I think that Massa was ahead with about 2-3 weeks left in the campaign. I say that not because of the Majority Watch polls, but also because I have it on good authroity that there was a Kuhl internal showing Kuhl 5 points down, and because of my general sense of the momentum of the campaign. Coming down the stretch, Massa got screwed in every conceivable way: Lonsberry and the Elmira Star-Gazette sand-bagged him with that Dickert nonsense (which should have been a non-issue, regardless of whose side you take in the dispute), the Southern Tier editors didn’t endorse him after indicating that they would (fair enough, obviously, and the Corning Leader and Elmira Star-Gazette wrote thoughtful endorsement pieces — wish I could say the same for the Olean Times-Herald’s shameful hatchet job), he was badly battered by Kuhl’s Social Security ad, the DCCC hung him out to dry, and the media in the Southern Tier refused to report on the RNCC robocall campaign.
Forget it, Jake, it’s NY-29.
There’s more to it than that: Kuhl (unlike James Walsh from NY-25) is a decent politician. His debate performance was not the catastrophe that many anticipated, his remarks about Katrina (which weren’t a big deal, IMHO) and “there are people who want to kill all of you, all of you” (which should have received more attention, also IHMO) notwithstanding. He did a relatively good job of convincing voters that he was in touch with the district (again, unlike James Walsh). And his campaign was wise to go with the Rove/Mehlman-ordered deceptive attack ads about Social Security (as dishonest as they were).
Of course, the big factor here is that it is heavily Republican district (about 44% Republicans, 29% Democrats). Massa ran a terrific campaign. He got outfoxed at the end with Social Security ads — he should have run ads saying that Kuhl wants to privatize Social Security (which is true) before any of the Social Security stuff went down. Do unto others before they do unto you.
In end, what makes me sad about this race is not that Kuhl won; I have so special animus towards Kuhl. One could even argue that his shameless rubberstamping is understandable, given his freshman status and corresponding lack of clout. What is sad is that Eric Massa lost. More than any other politician I’ve seen, he displayed an honest passion for the two most important issues that face us a nation: Iraq and health care. His thoughtful bluntness would have been very welcome, not to mention unique, in Washingon.
“Coming down the stretch, Massa got screwed in every conceivable way: Lonsberry and the Elmira Star-Gazette sand-bagged him with that Dickert nonsense (which should have been a non-issue, regardless of whose side you take in the dispute), the Southern Tier editors didn’t endorse him after indicating that they would (fair enough, obviously, and the Corning Leader and Elmira Star-Gazette wrote thoughtful endorsement pieces  wish I could say the same for the Olean Times-Herald’s shameful hatchet job)… and the media in the Southern Tier refused to report on the RNCC robocall campaign.”
Obviously, all the factors you listed played a role, and they are all a reflection of the power structure in a long-held Republican district. Hopefully, the excerpt I pasted above is where this blog along with other efforts can help to at least begin balancing the portrayals of the campaigns.
One question I have is, if the robocalls are currently legal, and Obama is not successful in passing his proposed legislation, should we partake in the same activity during the next election cycle? My gut response is definitely. If the other side is ready to play hardball, and the voters are going to fall for their tactics, we can’t just let ourselves get slammed. How about push polling?
By the way, does anyone know why the SS commercials were not rebutted? I heard the Massa campaign ran into a pinch in the last week before the election, which confused me, because I was previously under the impression that they had reserved ~$300,000 for the last two weeks before the election, exactly for this reason… to counteract a last minute attack ad.
I’m pretty anti-robocall, so I really hope that Democrats don’t start doing the sleazy mass robocall thing too.
What I’d like to do is this: wait and see what the text of the robocall laws in other states look like and then press our state reps to draft similar legislation. We should also talk to Louise Slaughter about this legislation. I’ll put together a big contact list and try to push people to make the calls to get the ball rolling.
By the way, does anyone know why the SS commercials were not rebutted?
I’d like to pin this down. I’ve heard conflicting things such as (1) their force was blunted the fact that the first negative ad didn’t go over that well and (2) that they weren’t able to reserve enough air time because of all the Davis/Reynolds ads.
I don’t have any inside info on the Massa ad buy, or lack of buy, either. I was expecting a little more TV presence the last week of the campaign and didn’t see it. I remember watching the Sunday morning talk shows the weekend before the election and seeing a bunch of unanswered Kuhl ads. In fact, I don’t recall seeing a single instance of the final Massa ad on television, though I have a dvr and don’t watch a lot of commercials.
“Ahead” and “behind” in the polls is hard to judge because different voters make up their minds at different times. In this election, my sense is that the D and I (or blank) voters made up their minds early, and the Rs made up their minds later. So the idea that Massa had the election in hand a month before, then “lost” it might overinterpret the polling data.
My hypothesis is that all the upstate R-incumbent seats were up for grabs, and the ones that lost required a credible challenger and mistakes made by the incumbent. Kelly’s mistakes were failing to debate her opponent and “running away” from the cameras. Sweeney’s 911 call pushed it over for Gillibrand. Reynolds’ credible response to the snowstorm, and Davis’ weak campaign, was enough to overcome his Foley mistake. Kuhl and Walsh won because they ran OK campaigns and didn’t have any last-minute dirty laundry.
Both NY-25 and NY-29 just saw their first tight elections of the last decade (at least). If the state and national Democratic party decides that these two are winnable in ‘08, I think we might see some more attention paid to the races. I’m excited by ‘08, especially if Massa runs again.
GIven the paucity of data, I have no convincing evidence that Massa was ahead. But my guess (which is all I have) is that he was, based on what little data I’ve seen and my general sense of things.
I agree with your analysis of Sweeney and Gillibrand. However, I feel that Kuhl fits in with that in a way, since he had the ugly revelations last time around. Without those, I think he’d be hard to beat in this district. With them, he’s beatable. My take is that the Social Security ads were in some an attempt to shore up support among women, which was weak in part because of the divorce revelations.
I don’t think NY-25 fits the same model as the others. It’s a Democratic leaning district, whereas NY-29 leans strongly
DemocratRepublican.ÂÂ Walsh is seen as a “good guy” while Sweeney, Kelly, and Kuhl are not (and weren’t, in Sweeney’s case, even before his domestic abuse allegations). I think Walsh is very, very beatable and will go down or retire soon. Kuhl — I’m not so sure.