We all know the numbers: the Republicans need to flip 39 seats from blue to red, just over a month from today, in order to begin wreaking untold havoc on our House and our democracy.
We can't afford to just give a seat away - but we seem to be doing just that in my backyard, and I ask just a few minutes of your attention (and a tip and a rec, if you think it's worth one) to a race that shouldn't be a giveaway.
If "NY-29" rings any bells with you, it's probably because of all the unwanted attention the seat got a few months ago when our Democratic congressman, Eric Massa, imploded. I think the guy may have been mentally ill, myself, and the details don't matter much, but suffice it to say that this seat has been empty all summer. Inexplicably, our Democratic governor, David Paterson, declined to call a special election, thus eliminating any chance that we'd get a Democratic short-term incumbent in place before November.
Be that as it may: we now have an open-seat race between two candidates who are essentially unknowns. How unknown? The one and only poll so far in this race found that the Democrat, Afghan war veteran Matt Zeller, is unknown to something like 82% of likely voters. His opponent, Tom Reed, the mayor of Corning, is not far behind - something like 43% name recognition.
Friends, this is one heck of an opportunity for whatever the campaign-financing equivalent of high-risk venture capital might be. See, here's the thing about NY-29: it's as gerrymandered as gerrymandered gets. The district starts in the quite blue southern suburbs of Rochester, turns south through the rapidly suburbanizing exurbia of Ontario County, keeps going south for another 90 miles to Elmira and Corning, small oases of urban voters in a deep red rural sea, and then turns west again along the Pennsylvania border for another 60 miles of red.
Ugly? Bad odds for a Democrat? That's what the "experts" would like you to believe...but I've lived in this district all my life, and I tell you as a native that this is not the impossible fight it might appear to be. Consider:
This ain't Teabagger country. Sure, we have our tea party groups up here in western New York, but they're small in numbers and small in influence. The tea folks couldn't get Doug Hoffman elected up in NY-23, up there in the North Country, and that area is so red and so rural it makes us look like New York City down here. What makes NY-29 a "Republican" district isn't just the voter registration figures, which favor the GOP, but the nature of that GOP vote - it's the small-town loyal Republicans of Yates and Schuyler and Steuben counties, who turn out reliably election after election. But...
This is upstate New York. We don't like extremists. The 29th, as it's currently gerrymandered, was created by Amo Houghton, one of the last of the old moderate Northeast Republicans back when such a species still existed in the wild. In his last race in the district, he pulled 73% of the vote. His hand-picked successor, the much more polarizing Randy Kuhl, never broke 52% in either of his wins before he lost narrowly to Massa in 2008. Why? In part, it had to do with more aggressive Democratic opponents - but it also speaks to the dislike that voters up here have for politicians who come off as anything less than level-headed. Kuhl was a hothead (and then some), and his unlikeability finally did him in.
The top of the ticket here in New York is changing - fast! Perhaps you've seen the news from around the Empire State today? Something about Carl Paladino losing it against the dean of the Albany press corps, Fred Dicker? Even out here in western NY, Paladino's home base, I don't think this kind of explosive assholishness is going to serve Crazy Carl well as November approaches. As enthusiasm for Paladino fades, and fade it will, it's bound to drag the rest of the ticket along with it, especially given the lackluster (and near-certain losing) lineup on the rest of the statewide GOP ticket. But wait - it gets much, much better for us! That whole "enthusiasm gap" thing that's been dogging Democrats around the country? The last few days in New York have wiped that off the map. Democrats all over the state are suddenly very engaged in the race for governor. We're ready to come out swinging (or at least to come out and fill in little ovals on a piece of paper) in November to make sure Crazy Carl doesn't take up residence in Albany.
And did I mention nobody knows who these candidates are? That, suddenly, is a great thing. It's a great thing because there's nothing much likeable about Tom Reed. He's a doughy bald guy (and I say that as a fellow doughy bald guy) whose day job is - are you sitting down? - running a debt-collection business. He's a freakin' DEBT COLLECTOR, folks. You want "unpopular occupation?" In a down economy? We've got that in the form of our opponent...a guy who's currently largely unknown to most of the district he wants to serve. A few well-placed ads can brand him indelibly with that - and tie him to Paladino, too, as Crazy Carl becomes the anvil dragging the rest of what's left of the New York GOP down with him.
There are TV ads? Well, yeah - Reed's been on the air with one, and it's as bad as you might imagine. Standard-issue "Obama bad, Pelosi bad, don't vote D" scare stuff. Nothing positive about Reed because...oh, yeah, because he's a fat, bald debt collector. This is not an expensive media market: half the district's population is served by Elmira TV, which is dirt-cheap, and half is in Rochester, which is a little more expensive, but not much. Did I mention our guy is a good-looking young Afghan war veteran?
Friends, this is winnable. It's a long shot, but it's winnable.
You can learn more about Zeller at the Fighting 29th, or at his own campaign site.
And then you can take a little risk and throw a few bucks Matt Zeller's way here (ActBlue) or here (Zeller campaign site).
(Maybe someone can hook him up with a really good TV ad guy, too. With a month left to go in a sprawling mess of a district, the only way he's going to get the kind of name recognition he needs to win will be TV.)