Down the Memory Hole

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This morning, one of the D&C’s Rochester bloggers, Andreas Rau, wrote a post about Louise Slaughter’s broken leg that included the tags “Alzheimer’s Disease”, “infirmity”, and “black eye”. The post included the rumor that Slaughter had gotten a black eye last month (which is not in evidence in floor speeches from the last month on C-SPAN, some of which are posted on her YouTube page). It also contains a veiled accusation that Slaughter is losing her edge, again without evidence:

Advanced age might bring wisdom with it, but it also brings physical (and in some cases, mental) frailty, something we have seen all too often in elected officials of both parties. Louise is well past retirement age, and there should be term limits for any elected office, Washington’s seniority system be damned!

I’d like to post a link to Rau’s piece, but it, and some negative reader comments, were deleted without explanation or even acknowledgement sometime this afternoon, probably after Christine Carrie-Fein at City posted a “shame on you” item. Of course, Google does not forget, and if the D&C somehow gets the story purged from their cache, I’ve saved an image for all to see.

Apparently this is another difference between online and print at the D&C: when an online piece is wrong, it just disappears. At least a mistake in print gets a tiny correction in the next day’s edition.

Some Animals are More Equal than Others

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Roger DeMott, who’s “a member of the Democrat and Chronicle’s Sounding Board”, whatever that means, has an opinion piece in today’s D&C about the race in NY-25. His basic point is that Rochester hasn’t seen a competitive Congressional race in a long time, and that will be a new experience for Rochesterians. That’s right as far as it goes, though the Rochester media market has seen contested races in the current NY-29 (which includes the southeast suburbs) in 2006 and 2008, a competitive race in the current NY-25 (northeast suburbs) in 2010, and a special election in the current NY-26 (western suburbs) last year, which means a good number of the residents of the new NY-25 know exactly what it feels like to experience a competitive election.

Setting aside the content of Roger’s piece, here’s my question for the D&C, which just laid off another 18 reporters, including some long-time columnists. Why doesn’t this contribution merit the gigantic disclaimer attached to all of you local blogs:

Is DeMott an employee of the D&C? Or are you just wanting to maintain some kind of artificial distinction between community-contributed content that only appears online and the same type of content that appears in print? We already know that you consider online a dumping ground for “inappropriate” content. Yet, in May, you’re going to ask us to pay to sort through the trash in your dump. Perhaps you can enlighten us with seven commandments, or three, or even one, that explains the difference between online, print, blogs and opinion.

Louise Breaks Her Leg

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Louise Slaughter broke her leg today while visiting New York City. She’ll miss the STOCK act signing ceremony tomorrow, but her office says she’ll be back to work when Congress re-convenes on April 16.

The implications for this and the issue of Slaughter’s health are obvious. According to Dr. Google, broken legs take about two months to heal. Presumably in an 82 year-old, that’s the minimum amount of time it will take before she’s back to normal.

Morning News

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The New York Times has a House race overview out. Nothing new, other than a terrible picture of Kathy Hochul and the news-to-me view that Dan Maffei is an “aggressive campaigner”.

Speaking of Hochul, it looks like there’s going to be a real fight in the Republican primary in her district. State Senator George Maziarz just endorsed David Bellavia, the opponent of establishment Republican and former Erie County Exec Chris Collins. I’ve explained earlier why Bellavia’s presence in a neighboring race that bleeds into the Rochester media market is bad news for Maggie Brooks.

Issue #2: The Ryan Budget and the Turner Example

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The House just voted to pass Paul Ryan’s budget plan, with 10 Republicans, most of them concerned that the plan didn’t go far enough, voting “No”. A key component of the Ryan plan would be a transformation of Medicare from a defined-benefit plan to a defined-premium plan. In other words, those under 55 would be given a voucher to purchase insurance instead of the current coverage of Medicare. Since the Ryan plan would roll back Obamacare, the independent, non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has also shown that the number of uninsured would go up, in addition to the amount being spent on Medicare going down.

The Ryan plan also cut taxes for millionaires by somewhere in the neighborhood of $150,000 per year, or more, depending on underlying assumptions (here’s a think tank report that estimates it at $187,000/year).

Slaughter is on the record opposing the Ryan plan, having made a six-minute speech on the floor of the House where she calls it “morally bankrupt”. Louise pegs the tax break at a whopping $300,000. Since the whole thing is based on estimates, there’s no benefit in Slaughter’s opponent quibbling with her math, since doing so just highlights the fact that Republicans passed another tax break for the rich.

Clearly the Ryan plan is not good political news for a Republican trying to run as a moderate. Brooks has ducked comment, going as far to characterize it as one of the “inside the Beltway” issues that she’s not going to concern herself with immediately. That’s not going to hold up. But, even if Brooks says she wouldn’t have voted for it, the logical follow-up is why voters should believe her. Bob Turner, who won Anthony Weiner’s old seat in part by pledging to vote against the Ryan budget, voted for it this week. That kind of reversal a few short months after being elected is certainly something the Slaughter campaign will highlight in ads later this year.

Maggie’s First Step Was a Mis-Step

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Benjamin Wachs, writing for the Messenger-Post papers, has a pretty good column explaining why Maggie Brooks’ attempt to run what he calls a “generic” campaign just won’t work against Slaughter. Wachs also points out something I’d missed, which is that the optics of Brooks announcing her run for Congress at the airport were pretty bad, considering that the biggest scandal on her watch was centered there.

Update: As Jeremy Moule pointed out on Twitter, Brooks announced at the GOP headquarters, so Wachs’ column is wrong.

Smug Contrarian

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Aaron Wicks at the Smugtown Beacon points out that Republican Congressional candidates got shellacked in the towns of the new NY-25 in 2008, by a factor of 63-37%, better than the roughly 60-40% Obama-McCain margin, and he thinks that’s good news for Republicans. His argument is that if there were a better Republican challenger, the margin would be tighter.

That’s true, but Wicks looks at these numbers, which are horrible for Republicans no matter how you slice them, and asserts that Brooks will win by an enormous 54-46% margin. No reasonable analyst has this race anywhere near there–all the services that charge money think this election tilts towards Slaughter and Brooks could at best edge her out in a hard-fought battle. Should we pay attention to Wicks?

My take is no, and here’s my reasoning: There are two kinds of contrarians. The first listens to the conventional wisdom, looks at the facts, and points out how they support a different conclusion. This type of contrarian is worth your attention, since they aren’t just reflexively saying “up” when everyone else says “down” to get your attention. The second type of contrarian is someone who looks at the facts, ignores them, and listens to his gut. As Stephen Colbert says about the gut’s role in logic, “I trust it so much, it’s where I put all my food.” In other words, Wicks probably could be trusted with a cheeseburger, but I don’t think I’ll trust his take on this election.

Afternooner: Maggie is Woman of the Year, Louise Fundraising on Robocalls

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Maggie Brooks was named Republican Woman of the Year at a gathering of Republican women in Albany.

I just got a fundraising letter from the Slaughter campaign asking for money to fight what she calls “misleading robo-calls”. Here’s what the calls say:

Hello, I’m calling from the National Republican Congressional Committee with an important alert about your Congressman Louise Slaughter. Slaughter voted for the government takeover of healthcare which cuts $500 billion from Medicare and is going to cost taxpayers nearly double what Washington politicians claimed. Slaughter’s plan even empowers unelected bureaucrats to make decisions that could deny access and raise the cost of care. Call Louise Slaughter at 202-225-3615 and tell her enough is enough and to keep her hands off our healthcare. Paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. 320 First Street SE, Washington, DC 20003. 202.479.7000

If you heard that call, you’d think that $500 billion was cut from Medicare benefits, but no benefits were cut, just some budget juggling, as every fact-checking organization agreed when this came up in 2010 (here’s CNN’s analysis, but you can use Google to find a dozen other, similar articles).