NY29, Fighting Dem, Eric Massa, "Notes from the Trail"

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Cross posted from dkos where Eric is live blogging.

As Tip O’Neill, long-time Speaker of the House, once declared, “All politics is local.” Never has that been more true than this year, as the Nation decides if their Representatives in Washington are more in tune with what the problems are back home or if they have sold their souls to the National political leadership of their parties for the benefit of some Washington agenda. I thought that today it would be helpful to offer an update of what is going on here on the ground in the 29th Congressional district in Western New York State.


For those who have never visited a map (Link) or visited this Congressional district, it stretches form Rochester south to the Pennsylvania border and then east and west across an area known as the Southern Tier. While the District is largely rural, over 50% of the population lives on 5% of the land in the suburbs of Rochester, and the vast majority of the rest live in a handful of small cities and towns like Corning, Elmira, Hornell, Olean, Watkins Glen, and Wellsville. It is a very economically depressed area and over the past few years, the majority of our living wage jobs have been outsourced to Mexico and China. While the District is 9% to 10% more Republican than Democrat, there is a very large percentage of blank and independent voters. A typical district Republican has very little in common with Tom Delay and the ruling Washington Republican elite.

This week, MoveOn ran ads in the district that attacked Randy Kuhl for his voting record on the war in Iraq and on his blocking votes to hold defense contractors like Halliburton accountable. ( Here is Kuhl’s voting record on the war), including the now well-known “Red-Handed” ad. Kuhl immediately retaliated – at me! This is despite numerous public statements and press conferences where in I clearly stated that I had nothing to do with MoveOn.org and where I asked all involved to seek a higher standard of debate about the issues. Despite these statements, Kuhl ran a slick ad where he put my face on the TV, called me MoveOn’s candidate and then, in an escalation of MoveOn’s visual technique, painted my face red, and said “they should be ashamed.” This really is too much to believe: professional politicians reverting instantly to the Swift-boat-style negative personal attack methods that Tom Delay and Karl Rove taught them so well.

However, the ad boomeranged all by itself – mainly due to its fundamental hypocrisy (see my formal statement here). At the same time Kuhl was complaining about being unfairly attacked, he used the same strategy himself to strike out at me. This is his strategy, instead of actually debating the issues, as he’s claimed is his intention. Actually, I’ve been asking for debates for almost five months. When he ran this ad Randy Kuhl showed what he was made of, and our email has been flooded with messages from Republicans who are fed up. Have no fear, we will answer this attack in a positive issues manner that will decide this race, and Mr. Kuhl will regret the day that he followed yet another rubber stamp instruction from the Tom Delay / Karl Rove play book.

Another major development this week happened when I was asked to participate in a national telephone press conference to discuss this Administration’s lack of a true national Security policy and their shabby treatment of Veterans. This followed Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s public attacks on all thinking people in this country, when he claimed that anyone who was against his stay-the-course policies was a WWII-style appeaser, and intellectually and morally confused. He stated that the American people were being lied to about the true conditions on the ground in Iraq. For once I found something that I could agree with him on. We are being lied to. The problem is that he’s the one doing the lying. And so is the President. And so is this rubber stamp of a Republican dominated out of touch Congress.

The Associated Press reporter Devlin Barrett was on that teleconference call, and he picked up the quote about Rumsfeld being a liar and put it in two separate wire-service stories, and from there it appeared in a number of major national newspapers and on the ABC Web site home page. Overall, the statement had about a two-day life-span in the national media.

Tomorrow I will march in the Rochester Labor Day parade, one of the few times that a political candidate has been honored by being named Grand Marshal. We hope to have many supporters and workers to march with us. I will actually be walking the parade route twice, first in front as a Grand Marshal and then I will run to the back to march with our supporters as a Candidate so that I can shake hands and distribute our campaign literature. The weather looks like it is going to cooperate and I am looking forward rallying with supporters before and after the Parade. Goodness knows that sleep will feel great tomorrow night.

But there will not be much of it. Former Senator Max Cleland arrives next weekend and we will be working around the clock before and during his visit so we can move around this huge District to some 20 events in three days, culminating on Monday, September 11 in Rochester. This will be a great press and fundraising opportunity, and we are going to make the most of each and every minute.

The view from the ground here in the 29th Congressional District became even clearer this week when the 90-day FEC candidate financial reports were made public. For the third reporting period in a row, with our grassroots campaign that is not accepting corporate cash, we out-raised an incumbent Republican. We had more individual contributors, both in and out of District, and we narrowed his cash lead to a 2 to 1 margin, down from his original 5 to 1.

We are one of the only Congressional races that has actually seen a challenger out-raise an incumbent – and we do not even accept money from corporate PACs. Of course we still have one heck of a long way to go, but the momentum is clearly on our side and it seems that the supporters of Mr. Kuhl are few and far between. With continued outreach and support we will be able to maintain the cash flow needed to win this election.

So, from the front lines we have been able to force Mr. Kuhl to show his true colors with his out-of-the-gate negative blasts where he clearly demonstrated the hypocrisy of his “victim” persona. We took the fight to Washington to call out Mr. Rumsfeld, with whom Randy Kuhl is best friends, and we are working hard to prepare for the arrival of Senator Cleland, who will travel the District with us next week.

I like where we are on the field and in the campaign. We have a great and very dedicated team, including full-time staff and a growing number of almost full-time volunteers who are making things happen around the clock. The national mood is with us (even David Broder is talking about fixing a broken congress), Mr. Kuhl has again demonstrated his rubber stamp position on Iraq, free trade, bankruptcy, and every other issue on the table, and we are there – everywhere – to take the fight into the hearts and minds of the voters who want to see the nation change course. This is the year when so many who have worked for so long after being told by the so few in Washington that it could not be -----will do it. Contibute, volunteer, vote! Thanks as always - Eric