Massa’s press Wednesday press conference
The indefatigable Rottenchester has another one of his excellent summaries of Massa’s Wednesday press conference up. As always, it’s extremely thorough. This struck me as particularly interesting:
I asked a more general question about General Batiste’s future role in the Massa campaign. Massa said that Batiste is “acting as a trusted advisor and counselor.” Batiste understands the “ground game and the lay of the land tactically” because of his experience in Iraq. Massa said he also considered himself fortunate to have Batiste as an advisor because of Batiste’s business experience. Massa will look to Batiste to provide advice and counsel on how to bring economic growth to the area.
Batiste’s input on economic growth dovetails with Massa’s desire to make the issue of a new jobs base in the 29th front-and-center for his 2008 campaign. At the top of the press conference, Massa announced that he is developing a plan similar to one that was successful in the Raleigh-Durham area. This plan brings together business, education and local government, leveraging the strengths of each group to help build an economy that will employ young people in the area. Currently, those young people receive an education at local colleges but must leave the area due to a lack of jobs.
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I like what Massa is doing, especially because no one else will.
But isn’t it the job of our County/City government to come up with brilliant plans like the Raleigh-Durham model? Why do nominees for Congress have to do the dirty work? When Massa gets to DC, all he can do is direct earmarks anyways.
Eric Massa is a good man not just doing a great job as a candidate, but doing the City and County’s job for them.
I think Congressional candidates have role to play as well. And it should be strategic — not just random pork for random projects.
That’s a good question and one worth asking after Massa reveals his whole plan (if the plan doesn’t address the question). He said he would have it up on his website at some point in the campaign.
One other thing that Congressmen can do, besides directing earmarks, is to get locals in touch with existing grant projects. Though the earmark abuse makes it seem like that’s how all funding is allocated, a lot of federal funds are still distributed through grant projects where applicants have to write proposals to justify their project’s eligibility. That’s one of the facets of constituent service that you don’t hear a lot about.