Governor-Elect Eliot Spitzer was in Washington yesterday; a meeting was set up with the New York Delegation. Guess who didn’t show up:
None of the six returning GOP members of Congress from New York nor any of their staff attended. Some Republican aides complained of receiving very late notice of the meeting set up by Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel, and others said they didn’t expect anything important to be discussed.
From the Olean Times Herald, November 12, 2006:
Kuhl says he’s ready to work with new Congress
On Election Day eve, U.S. Rep. John R. “Randy” Kuhl Jr., R-Hammondsport, indicated he’d try to work with Democrats, even though they did little but stall legislation over the last two years.
Three things here. 1) Election Day eve??? Am I reading this correctly – wouldn’t that have been MONDAY, November 6? Looks to me that he was very confident that last week’s election was already in the bag before one lever was touched,
First – to the jerk who sent me the spam/virus “Best Buy Order Confirmation” for a SONY VAIO email, I wish a very special kind of karma for you. You put me through a hell that I just didn’t need to experience this morning.
I immediately thought that I was a victim of credit card/identity theft. That really sucked, especially since I’m running on about 3 1/2 hours sleep. You wasted over 1 1/2 hours of my time dealing with this between phone calls and virus scans already this morning.
If any of you receive this email, Best Buy Customer Service says: don’t open the email, delete it. If you did open it, do not click on the link/attachment. That will start the virus. I didn’t click the link/attachment, and that saved me. But I did run a few different scans to be on the safe side.
Now, to business. I understand that the Kuhl/Massa race has been called for Kuhl (51%-49%); however, Massa has not conceded.
NY State 147th District – Burling
NY State 149th District – Giglio
NY State Senator – Clinton
NY State Gov/LT – Spitzer/Patterson
NY State AG – Cuomo
NY State Comptroller – Hevesi
Cattaraugus Co. Dist. 5 – Couture
Allegany Co. Sheriff – Tompkins
Seneca Nation – Seneca Party takes every major office
I will post later today with additional county and Seneca Nation results and the available numbers.
This will be updated throughout the final counts. (please forgive the formatting.)
Cattaraugus Co.; 25 of 79 Precincts Reporting: 9:45 pm / 62 of 79, 10:10pm
JOHN RANDY KUHL, JR. (ENC) 3167 / 8633
ERIC J. MASSA 2644 / 7024
*** TOTAL ALL DISTRICTS *** 5811 / 15657
Catt.Co.;149th Assembly District; 25 of 79 Precincts Reporting; 9:45 pm / 62 of 79, 10:10 pm / FINAL
JOSEPH M. GIGLIO (ENC) 3524 / 9572 FINAL: 12,182
LINDA L. WITTE 2502 / 6751 FINAL: 8,514
*** TOTAL ALL DISTRICTS *** 6026 / 16,323 / 20,696
via WKBW;147th Assembly District; 5 of 114 Precincts Reporting; 9:45 pm / 27 of 114 reporting, 10:10 pm
DANIEL BURDING 778 / 4936
JUDITH HUNTER 307 / 1811
****TOTAL ALL DISTRICTS 1085 / 6747
NY-29 via WKBW; 107 of 635 Precincts; 10:10 pm / 565 of 635 11:10 pm
KUHL: 14,193 / 87,748 51%
MASSA: 13,031 / 84,966 49%
NY-29; Monroe county; 212 of 230 Precincts Reporting 10:30pm / FINAL
Kuhl – 27,320 43.2% / 30,048 43.3%
Massa – 35,882 56.7% / 39,315 56.7%
NY-29; Cattaraugus Co. FINAL
Kuhl – 11,070 55.7%
Massa – 8,800 44.3%
NY-29; Ontario County. FINAL
Kuhl – 13,985
Massa – 13,272
NY-29; Chemung County. FINAL
Kuhl – 12,715 52%
Massa – 11,511 48%
via WKBW; NY-29; 596 of 635 reporting; 11:25 pm
Kuhl – 93734 51%
Massa – 89,437 49%
CNN is reporting that the Democratic party has already won enough (15) seats to take control of the House and have picked up 3 senate seats so far (they need six for control).
Hat tip to The Fighting 29th for sourcing the following recent articles on the Kuhl/Massa Congressional race:
THE CHOICE IS YOURS From Steuben County’s The Courier
Spitzer backs Massa in Canandaigua From the Finger Lakes Times
It’s a sprint to the wire for Kuhl, Massa; From the Olean Times Herald
The Fighting 29th is also reporting that President Bill Clinton will be in Rochester on Monday “to rally the faithful” and although Massa’s Monroe County schedule is not yet posted for tomorrow, we can probably safely assume that he’ll be showing up at the event.
Pollster.com provides a graph that charts the results of the Kuhl/Massa polls. Unfortunately, I cannot show it here as this site does not allow for embedding javascript for security reasons.
Go take a look. Its quite interesting.
As noted on my last post, “Latest Kuhl Campaign Ad”:
[NOTE: The ad hits on Massa’s opposition to the Patriot Act. This is a complex subject worthy of a book, let alone a blog post. Therefore, I’m going to briefly address this in a following post. (This one is long enough already.)]
So, lets talk about the Patriot Act. From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
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Did You Know that Eric Massa Hates the Troops and America and wants this nation to be attacked again? You didn’t??? It could be because its not true. However, according to the latest “hit piece” from Rep. Randy Kuhl’s campaign, this must obviously be the case.
I’m getting highly annoyed and pretty tired of debunking these attack ads from Rep. Kuhl. Rep. Kuhl, when are you going to start sending out ads that detail your positions on issues instead of sending out these attack ads on Mr. Massa??? How about something positive from you, about only you, for a change? Do you have any plans for that type of advertising? You are running out of time, though. (And I could use the break from doing these reports. PLEASE???)
From The Fighting 29th:
Ad Tweaks and Internet Ads, which includes the new Massa commerical and an internet ad from Majority Action, which focuses on Rep. Kuhl’s opposition to stem cell research (although I don’t recall them using the word “embryonic” in the ad).
In response to a comment by “Rottenchester” in the post, Sometimes We Are Blessed, the following are transcripts of recent calls I’ve received from the NRCC in support of Rep. Kuhl’s candidacy. The first is a complete transcript. The second is a partial transcript, as I picked up the phone mid-message to talk to the caller. Either the caller didn’t engage with the recipients, or it was an automated call (although it didn’t sound automated – I could be wrong).
The new, independent Majority Watch Poll results are out. 1004 Interviews were taken from 10/24 – 10/26/06; MoE is +/- 3.09%.
Results are 53% Massa / 42% Kuhl. Last poll results were 52% Massa / 40% Kuhl.
What suprised me was the change in the Southern Tier area of the District. Last poll results had Rep. Kuhl up +1; this poll has Mr. Massa up +2 for the area. However, Massa did drop 6 points in the northern area of the district; +20 now vs +26 from the last poll.
Living where we do – in a media market that serves Buffalo vs. Rochester, Corning, or Elmira – can sometimes be more of a blessing than a hinderance in this election season. While we are being bombarded with Tom Reynolds and Jack Davis Congressional television commercials, we are not being subjected to the nasty, negative commercials for our own district, (However, we are receiving the deceptive telephone calls and mailings.)
So why the distorted, negative advertising, and what are we missing?
… Carl Forti, with a similar budget to protect the GOP majority, was playing defense. His own polls showed a growing number of House Republicans in serious trouble. Forti, 34, had little choice but to buy ads to protect suddenly at-risk Reps. Charles Bass (N.H.) and John R. “Randy” Kuhl Jr. (N.Y.).
Rochester Turning has a great piece of research on their site. Its worth the time to go and take a look:
Randy Kuhl on Social Security — lying or just forgetful?
Let’s do a “Reverse Randy”, and instead of taking statements out of context, we’ll put Kuhl’s statements IN context. …
Allow me to walk you through it. Kuhl spent most of 2005 trying to privatize Social Security, even going so far as to introduce a bill (HR 3913), on his own, that would allow a board of presidential appointees to invest the Social Security surplus without any restrictions. …
It’s interesting that Rep. Kuhl chooses to attack Eric Massa’s stand on social security, (faulty as it is), given Rep. Kuhl’s history with the subject. Maybe he’s banking on the chance that most don’t know what is going on here. (Unfortunately, I’d guess that most don’t.)
Do you Pledge to not engage in negative campaigning and advertising?
(Rep.) Kuhl – Absolutely not (meaning he will not run a negative campaign). I have never run a negative campaign and never will.
I heard the above words spoken in real time, on October 10, 2006, during the debate for Rep. Kuhl and Eric Massa held in Elmira, NY.
Seasonal workers on Western NY, and are they treated fairly?
Linda Witte: It is one of the things to look at. It is a regional problem. If they come here to do jobs, you have to treat them fairly. You have to look at what they are doing for us. There is nothing wrong with seasonal workers coming here and being treated fairly, and this includes their children and taking care of them if they become ill.
Joe Giglio: They are vital to our economy and farms. They are treated fairly. It is important that we protect all workers. The farmers need their help – it is an important relationship.
Wind generation for Cattaraugus County and NY State?
Joe Giglio: I am in favor of alternate fuels here in Catt. Co. It might be the way to go. We should get it up and running.
Linda Witte: I would like to support it, but it needs to be something that farmers are a part of. It is frustrating when government comes in and makes decisions that comes back to us and says “why are you complaining?”. Zoning laws must be updated, but it has to be done carefully. You have to take into consideration the people you are going to affect. I support it with the people’s involvement.
The NYS Farm Bureau sponsored a debate in Great Valley, NY this past Tuesday night between Assemblyman Joe Giglio, challenger Linda Witte, Warren Schmidt (representing Rep. Randy Kuhl), and Joe Meisch (representing Eric Massa). Below are my notes from the debate. The following is not fully verbatim. Due to the length of the transcription, I have divided it into three separate posts.
National Journal’s Latest House Race Rankings – 10/23/06 – The latest 2006 House Race Rankings by Chuck Todd, Hotline editor, and Josh Kraushaar, House Race Hotline editor, have the NY-29 Congressional District Race between incumbent Rep. Randy Kuhl (R) and Eric Massa (D) ranked at #33. This is up from the last ranking slot of #36.
How they’re ranked: Seats are ranked by likelihood to switch party control (i.e., the top-ranked race is the seat most likely to flip).
Of the top 60 races profiled, only six are democratic incumbent seats (numbers 39, 40, 42, 45, 46, and 51. Seat #45 is an open seat in Vermont.)
Recent developments at the Canandaigua VA Hospital regarding the closure of an in-patient acute psychiatric unit by November 30, 2006, have triggered strong reaction from local veterans, Senator Clinton, and Congressional Candidate Eric Massa. Earlier this year, the hospital was deemed to be a “Center of Excellence”, one of three across the country.
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The Rural Patriot 