Kuhl Wants Massa Apology
-
- September
- 17
First, Democratic congressional candidate Eric Massa’s father wanted an apology from Rep. Randy Kuhl, R-Hammondsport, Steuben County, for his remarks, now Kuhl wants an apology from Massa for “intentionally distorting the truth in a campaign news release.”
Kuhl’s campaign said Massa “conveniently omitted” that the reason Kuhl can’t participate in Monday night’s WXXI debate is because he will be back in session in the House. Massa claimed Kuhl is holding two major fundraisers in Washington—which he is—and not attending the debate instead.
Kuhl’s campaign also continued to hammer Massa for not yet returning campaign contributions from embattled Rep. Charlie Rangel, an issue many Republican candidates are harping on. Kuhl’s campaign pointed out that Democratic Senate candidate Mark Begich in Alaska has given a $10,000 contribution he received from Rangel’s PAC to the Armed Forces YMCA charity.
“Mr. Massa asserts in his press release that he knows ‘my priorities,’” Kuhl said in a statement. “Well, my question to Mr. Massa is what kind of priorities does he have by accepting over $26,000 in personal campaign contributions from Mr. Rangel and almost $40,000 funneled to him by Mr. Rangel.”
Kuhl continued, “If Mr. Massa did, he would apologize to the people for misleading them and then immediately return every dime from Mr. Rangel and cancel the October 6th fundraiser hosted by him.”
Last month, Massa’s father wrote Kuhl a letter after Kuhl told Massa when Massa confronted Kuhl over a lack of debates that “That’s not the way I was raised.”
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 at 5:37 pm by Joseph Spector.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Print This Post
| 
Email This Post
Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
Mr. Kuhl sounds awfully angry that people have the audacity to expect him to leave Washington and come home to debate the issues that affect the voters he is supposed to represent. How can Mr. Kuhl represent the voters if he is not in the district discussing the issues that they care about?
In truth, expecting Mr. Kuhl to come home and have a public debate is not such an outrageous concept.
Congressman Murphy has managed to schedule 8 debates. Congresswoman Boyda has managed to schedule 5 debates. Last cycle Kuhl himself managed to schedule 10 debates with Eric Massa. So, what has changed? The people of the 29th district are just as important this year as they were last cycle, and the issues—- energy costs, health care, the war in Iraq—- are more important now than ever.
Thankfully, Rochester has a great airport, and is just a short hour and fifteen minute flight from DC – so Kuhl could both vote and debate.
It’s all a matter of his priorities.
It seems clear that the people of his district just aren’t that important to Mr. Kuhl. Instead, based on his votes—- which protect corporations rather than middle class families—- Mr. Kuhl’s allegiance resides with those who mingle in the halls of Washington as opposed to those who live in the 29th district.
Maybe the Congressman is afraid to stand before people here at home and explain why – just yesterday – he voted against a comprehensive Energy Plan to lower gas prices – after he spent weeks calling for just such a plan.
The people of the 29th district don’t have time for silly political games. Kuhl’s voting record is the truth he cannot hide from.
But Kuhl continues to try to distract the public with attacks on Eric Massa over monies donated from Congressman Rangel. This is just more of Kuhl’s silly political games. There is a fundamental difference between Congressman Rangel and the Democrats and Kuhl and the Republicans: open government. Here are the facts:
Congressman Rangel has called for an Ethics Investigation to clear his name.·
Kuhl, on the other hand, took $20k from Congressman Tom Delay –·
Kuhl then voted to kill the congressional investigation into Tom Delay and lobbyist Jack Abramoff.·
The result of the investigation Kuhl voted against after taking $20,000 from Delay? Lobbyist Jack Abramoff is in jail and Tom Delay was indicted by a grand jury for money laundering.·
And, Kuhl has yet to return the $20,000.·
It appears as if hypocrisy is alive and well in the Kuhl Congressional office. The people of Western New York just don’t have time for these political games from Congressman Kuhl; they deserve better—- they deserve a real representative who is willing to discuss the issues and vote with their interests in mind.
By refusing to debate, one can only conclude that Representative Kuhl is more interested in sipping cocktails with lobbyists at his DC fundraiser on Monday than he is in talking to regular folks back home about real issues.
That’s a shame. Eric Massa has announced “I’ll still be there on Monday if people have questions for me.â€