CSEA Video

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The CSEA, which is a AFSCME chapter representing State of New York workers, has released this video encouraging everybody to ask if Maggie Brooks is campaigning on Monroe County’s dime. Of course, the same question could be asked of Louise Slaughter, who will also be doing her day job while running for Congress.

The difference between Maggie and Louise is that Louise must follow the rules set out in a 400-page House ethics manual [pdf]. If CSEA wants to make this an issue, one way to do it would be to find the Monroe County ethics rules and tell us how Maggie could be violating them. I can’t find the ethics standards on the County’s website, even though a new ethics training program was announced with much fanfare shortly after the ROBUTRAD scandal broke. Perhaps the CSEA could FOIL that manual and let us all know what it says.

Spoiler Alert

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Next door in the new NY-27, former Erie County exec Chris Collins will be face off in a primary against highly decorated and very conservative Iraq War vet David Bellavia. According to Alan Bedenko (Buffalopundit), Bellavia will receive support from Jack Davis, a millionaire serial candidate for Congress. Davis alternated between running as a Democrat and a Republican during the last few cycles, while consistently remaining a bitter old man with zero retail political skills. He’s planning to inject his money and vitriol into the NY-27 race in the form a SuperPAC that will advertise on behalf of Bellavia.

Because the new NY-27 encompasses some Monroe County towns and neighboring counties south and west of Rochester, Davis’ PAC will probably buy a fair amount of  advertising in the Rochester market. Collins, like Brooks, is a middle-of-the-road, pork-friendly Republican who doesn’t want to talk about social issues. Pro-Bellavia ads will expose Rochester voters to attacks on a moderate Republican from the right, and Rochester media will no doubt ask Maggie Brooks whether the substance of those attacks also apply to her.

In addition to making trouble for Collins in the Republican primary, Bellavia (with Davis’ money behind him) is a logical choice for the Conservative party line. If he wins that and Collins wins the Republican Primary, we’ll have the wet dream of every Democrat in the new NY-27, which is a Dede Scozzafava situation where conservatives split between Collins and Bellavia. That’s relevant to NY-25 because Bellavia ads in the Fall will continue to put far-right ideology in front of NY-25 voters. Maggie will either have to disavow that ideology (and alienate her base), or embrace it (and alienate moderates).

City Turnout Will Drive 2012

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In 2008, around 14,000 more voters voted in the towns and cities of the new 25th than voted in 2004. 55% of the bigger turnout came from the city. The city voted for Obama by an 81-17 margin, versus a 71-26 margin for Kerry vs Bush. The key question for Slaughter is whether these voters will turn out again in 2012. I’ll have some analysis at the House race level soon, but for now I’m using the Presidential election as a proxy for a tough contest between a Democrat and a Republican.

Que Sera, Sera, Whatever Curt Sees Won’t Be

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I’m going to pick three statements from Curt Smith’s column in the Webster Post to show why nobody should listen to this guy:

Knowing [that Maggie is a good candidate], Louise last year began to slightly curb her liberalism, as private polls show Brooks at least even.

Never trust anyone referring to a “private poll” because the privacy of the poll means that you don’t know what was asked, to whom, and when. Without that information, you know nothing about the poll. Either Curt knows this and chose to mention the poll anyway, or he actually believes that the poll is worth mentioning. Either way, he’s misleading the readers of the Post.

As for Louise’s supposed new-found conservatism, National Journal gave her an 89% liberal score last month. Barney Frank got 91%. In 2010, Louise was scored at 91%.  Barney was 93%. Either Barney is curbing his liberalism in exactly the same ratio as Louise, even though he’s retiring and has nothing to lose, or Curt just pulled that little assertion out of thin air.

Speaking of unfounded assertions, here’s the hand wave Curt uses to dismiss ROBUTRAD:

Brooks has brooked development and crony scandal. Few worry.

I might be willing to accept that the indictment and conviction of some of Maggie’s staff will not be a major issue in this election, but I’m not willing to do that without an argument, and neither should Curt’s readers.

Even though Curt could’t be bothered to do serious political analysis, he did name check  Doris Day (last movie: 1968) and Red Barber (last breath: 1992), and he references Thelma and Louise (released: 1991) to make a point about feminism. Curt seems like a pleasant fellow and I honestly do hate to pick on him, but if he would just become a mental as well as physical inhabitant of the current century, his analysis might have some relevance to this year’s race in NY-25.

Gillibrand Fundraises for Slaughter

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Liz Benjamin at YNN has the latest Gillibrand fundraising letter, which asks for money for Kathy Hochul and Louise Slaughter. Gillibrand can afford to be magnanimous because the recent Republican convention in Rochester ratified what was already obvious: she’s going to cruise to an easy re-election win against a second- or third-tier token Republican challenger. This is a double-edged sword for Slaughter. On one hand, it means that Gillibrand will be able to campaign for Slaughter, Hochul and other down-ticket candidates, since her re-election campaign will be a formality. On the other hand, since she won’t have a serious competitor, her campaign won’t put on a full-press get-out-the-vote effort, which means that Slaughter will be relying on her own effort, and that of the Monroe County Democratic Party, which is mediocre at best at getting voters to the polls.

Sunday Morning Coming Down

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The Cook Political Report, a fairly well-respected political analysis service, has its first set of rankings out since redistricting. The new NY-25 is in the “leans Democratic” category, which is the second most competitive category. Cook calculates the PVI of NY-25 as D+5, which makes it fairly Democratic, but also indicates that Obama’s 18-point win in 2008 (11 points over the national results) was a Democratic high-water mark in NY-25. NY-28, Slaughter’s current district, was a D+15 “safe” district by Cook’s reckoning.

Cook rates NY-24, the new Syracuse district, as another “leans Democratic” race. There, Ann-Marie Buerkle will face Dan Maffei, who she beat in 2010. Since that district is now D+4 (it was D+3), and since Buerkle hasn’t moderated any of her Tea Party stances, even a weak campaigner like Maffei will probably win, despite the well-demonstrated fact that he’s a guy who could probably fuck up a ham sandwich. Rochester will probably see a lot of NY-24 ads because its bedroom communities in Wayne County are still part of the new district.

The new NY-27, which Kathy Hochul won after Chris Lee resigned, is R+6 instead of R+7 but will still be tough for her to win. It’s currently rated “Leans Republican” by Cook, but with former Erie County Executive Chris Collins announcing this weekend, that may change for the worse. Collins, who lost his re-election bid last year, is in no way as strong a challenger as Brooks, and he’s also widely considered to be at fault for the incompetent campaign run by Jane Corwin, Hochul’s challenger in the special election. NY-27 includes a few towns in Monroe County so we’ll see plenty of advertising for this race, which is the most likely Republican pick-up in New York this year.

NY-23, the new Southern Tier district, is in the “likely Republican” category, though it is a R+3 district now instead of the safer R+5 district it was. Cook has this as a “likely Republican” district mainly because Tom Reed doesn’t have strong opposition for that seat. NY-23 won’t much of a factor in Rochester politics any longer, since no Monroe County towns, or even any bordering counties, are part of the district.

Speaking of Reed, he brought House Minority Leader Eric Cantor to Henrietta on Friday. Cantor also met in private with Brooks to discuss her campaign.

Somebody Loan Me Your Lonsberry Decoder Ring

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Bob Lonsberry thinks Maggie should run to as the real American in the race:

The best service she can offer her country, is to step into the bully pulpit and make the case for Americanism.

Here’s some more:

This isn’t about partisanship, this is about patriotism. And if sending Maggie Brooks to Congress didn’t serve a patriotic end, there would be no reason to do it.

But there is a patriotic rationale. There is a legitimate good. There is a national need.

A vote for Maggie Brooks is a vote for America. And even if the politicians don’t realize that, the people must.

I guess voting for Louise Slaughter is a vote for, what, Canada? Guatemala? Sometimes it appears as if Bob talks in some kind of code originated in the hills around Mt. Morris and passed on via ancient clan rituals of the elusive FUBO tribe.

Bob also gives Maggie some bad political advice, which revolves around selling a vote to Maggie as a vote against a second Pelosi speakership. In a district where Democrats voted for Obama by an 18 point margin in a year when the devil herself was the speaker, one has to assume that Pelosi’s satanic nature wasn’t relevant then, and it won’t be now.  Bob needs to pick a different bogeywoman for this district.

Louise Does It Her Way

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Over on the Twitter, Sean Carroll was complaining about Louise Slaughter’s refusal to take campaign questions at her press availability this afternoon.  Since the event was in the Federal Building, she said she couldn’t talk about the campaign.  Chapter 4 of the House Ethics manual [pdf] does say you can’t conduct a campaign out of a House office, but answering questions isn’t campaigning, so I think Louise just didn’t want to talk to the press and she came up with a plausible excuse. So, on the part of the 13-WHAM newscast I saw, Sean got to tell us all that Louise looked good and said she was feeling fine.

For more than twenty years, Louise has lived in a world where Louise talks about what Louise wants to talk about.  Today, Louise wanted to talk about the bill she sponsored, the STOCK act, which just passed Congress, so that’s what she did.  Like Maggie, Louise  has been in front of the press for a good part of her adult life, and she’s not going to get caught saying anything unless she’s prepared to say it.

Poll Mentions Morelle

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Rachel Barnhart has been hearing about a poll comparing Maggie Brooks with Louise Slaughter (no surprise) and Monroe County Democratic Chair Assemblyman Joe Morelle (big surprise).

In addition to Rachel’s guesses (centered around Louise’s health), this could just be a simple “what if” comparing a lesser-known Democrat to a well-known one to gauge the bottom of Democratic support in the district. I was polled a few times by someone interested in the 2010 Jim Alesi race in my district, and they compared him to a couple of well-known Republicans and Democrats.

Welcome to Twitter, Hope Your Resume Is Up-to-Date

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Consider this my official welcome of D&C Publisher Mike Kane to Twitter. File it under “never too late”, which is apparently the D&C management’s attitude about the Internet in general.

Mike, when you kill your newspaper by instituting a paywall, perhaps that will give you time to reflect on why nobody wants to advertise in the D&C in the first place. Let’s start with the basics. Do you realize the utter commercial failure embodied in splitting up stories so I have to page 3 times to read a few hundred words, while burying your ads at the bottom of the page? Here’s an example from today’s D&C. There are 12 ad positions and four sponsored links below the place where I click “next page” to see the next page of the story.  In other words, most of the ads are in places I’ll never look, by design. You make readers click three times to expose them to ads they’ll never see.  Do you think they’ll be lining up to pay to click 3 times to read that story?

As has been the case for the last decade, most of those ads they’re not seeing are the usual Internet junk, at best fake-localized:
That’s not an ad about Fairport, its an ad that figured out that my Internet connection is near Fairport (I’m actually in Pittsford, but good try) to try to sell me some scam.  Why would any Rochester advertiser want to put their brand next to this kind of crap?

Speaking of our home town, let’s look at the Pittsford page of the D&C. There are five ads on this page. Two of them are from MacDonald’s. One’s from a city charter school, one’s a sponsorship link from Cars.com, and one’s a house ad for Careerbuilder.  There’s a new bakery in downtown Pittsford, and there are lots of new businesses opening and closing in Pittsford Plaza, yet not a single one of these businesses has chosen to advertise on your local landing page or on the Pittsford blog.  They’re spreading the word via social media, they’re posting their new business on RocWiki, Yelp and Google, and they’re advertising in the Brighton-Pittsford Post and the Penny Saver.  What they’re not doing is spending any money with you.

Howard Owens, who publishes The Batavian and sells a lot of ads, is right about your paywall — it’s going to open up opportunities for your competitors.  You should read his stuff carefully, because he’s making money where you aren’t.  But even without a paywall, your competition is already beating you, because your company is apparently unable to do what newspapers have done to support themselves for a couple hundred years:  sell ads to local advertisers.

So, Mike, welcome to Twitter, and good luck with your paywall.  One piece of advice:  fasten your seatbelt, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Update:  Apparently Karen doesn’t like criticism.