WETM reports on today's Massa press conference, where he was endorsed by Maj Gen (Ret.) John Batiste and former Horseheads Republican Committee Chair Sherman Moreland.

(Moreland isn't mentioned in the WETM piece, but a Massa press release includes him as another Republican endorsement.)

Update: Rochesterturning has video of Moreland's endorsement, which I've embedded after the fold. WENY in Elmira and Syracuse News 10 also picked up the event.

Update #2: Rochesterturning also has General Batiste's endorsement.
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William W Napier was at the Christoper Lee Fundraiser BBQ in Greece and has a report on his blog about the event. Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks and State Senator Joe Robach were both in attendance.

The other day The Buffalo News looked into 26th District candidate’s financial disclosures.

The Kryzan campaign contacted me in response to a previous post suggesting that the candidate’s past donations to Republican Congressman Tom Reynolds and Governor George Pataki represented Republican leanings and in short that there were “Three Republicans running” for the Democratic nomination. The campaign assured me that Mrs. Kryzan has been a life-long registered Democrat and that her donations did not represent a shift in politics but instead a practice of reaching “across the isle”.

From the campaign:

Alice also has a long history of financially supporting progressive Democratic candidates and the Democratic Party. In 2004 she and her husband along with another couple, organized and hosted what turned out to be, at the time, the largest Democratic fundraiser ever held in Buffalo. The fundraiser was for the Kerry/Edwards campaign, had Governor Jeanne Shaheen as the speaker, and raised $175,000. Also in 2004, at the request of the Democratic Party, Alice organized a fundraiser for Brian Higgins at which Nancy Pelosi was the special guest and helped raise money for Brian.

Both Davis & Powers were registered Republicans, both of whom switched after personal experiences while Ms. Kryzan has been a lifelong Democrat. It was wrong to place her contributions in the same league as two registered candidates.

The Albany Project has a good video interview with Jon Powers.

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Looking over the quarterly filings for the Powers for Congress campaign committee one thing stood out very clear. The campaign had spent nearly half of its fundraising dollars but produced no known mailings and no television or radio advertising. The campaign, whose Web site is rather bare with only a few Web videos to speak of, no forums or inspiring Web 2.0 applications, no blog or heavy social-networking integration and little in the way of interaction, is not the burgeoning hub of activity you would imagine as the online mecca of a modern campaign claiming a “grassroots” platoon.

So two questions remain:

1) What did the campaign spend their money on if not traditional or heavy online advertising?
2) Can we expect that there will ever be a Mainstream Media (MSM) response to the heavy advertising by opponent Jack Davis?

I am still working on a comprehensive answer to the first question and should have the answers in the coming weeks. As for the second I contacted campaign Communications Director Victoria Dillon who assured me ads were on the way “soon”.

It appears from everything I have read and seen that Powers has been focusing on hitting the streets, petitioning, making appearances and sending out representatives to targeted neighborhoods. This is a traditional vision of “grassroots” campaigning and in a district our size, it could well pay off in opposition to a candidate like Davis who appears to spend little time with the people in favor of publicity seeking stunts and heavy MSM air play.

With that said, Davis now has two cycles of advertising experience behind him. When it comes to name recognition he undoubtedly has the edge over Powers. Yes Powers has done well in courting the local bloggers along with national outlets like Huffington Post & DailyKos, but those sites don’t hit the majority of our local voting public as easily as television or radio will. Powers, the newcomer, doesn’t yet have the instant name recognition of Davis and in a largely conservative district he also won’t have the numbers of voters who will simply walk into a booth and hit his name while voting down the party line like opponent Chris Lee can expect.

Powers started off over a year ago with a compelling back story, a public that showed it was growing weary of its current representation and all the right fundraising connections to get him started. A series of gaffs and a year of MSM silence has now left him behind the ball against a candidate who came close to capturing the seat in 2006.

From the Buffalo News:

The chairman of the Monroe County Independence Party has resigned after his wife accepted $5,000 in what party officials call “bribe money” from the campaign of Democratic congressional candidate Jack Davis.

Rafael Colon, a Rochester resident who works in a Batavia factory, quit his local and state positions after Monroe County Independence Party officials confronted him over the payment, according to Walter Schiemann, interim chairman.

“It’s all about what we call the bribe money from Jack Davis,” Schiemann said. “I’m not going to let this party fall into hands like that.”

The Buffalo News reported July 18 that Colon’s wife had received $5,000 from Davis under her maiden name for “campaign consulting.” The wife of Anthony L. Orsini, chairman of the Erie County Independence Party, also received $5,000 from Davis for “campaign consulting” through a firm she established in the couple’s Florida mobile home earlier this year.

Colon and Orsini are the party’s two most influential chairmen in the 26th Congressional District…But Orsini previously acknowledged that Fumerelle could end up “holding the line” until September, when he could receive an Independence nomination for State Supreme Court and be replaced with a major party candidate.

There is more information available at the Buffalo News Blog and the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle.

This is obviously major news and begs us to ask the question, ‘Has anyone else been given similar money and if so whom and how much?’

As we move closer to primary day the battle for the 26th Congressional seat is heating up both offline and on. Currently candidates Jack Davis and Jon Powers are grabbing most of the attention and two sites have sprung up to challenge their rhetoric and credentials. The latest is War Kids Relief a blog focusing on Powers charity of the same name setup after the candidate returned from duty in Iraq/ The charity is often cited by the campaign to bolster his credentials but its legitimacy has been questioned in online circles for many months now. The thrust of this new blog stems from a quote by Powers who said in a July 2007 interview “War Kids has struggled to do much in Iraq on the ground itself…” which the site believes is confirmation of speculation over Powers actual accomplishments in charitable work.

The second site Say no to Jack Davis has been in business since April but has seen renewed interest in the last few days, challenging Davis’ position on illegal immigration and his former allegiance to the Republican Party.

Both sites have few posts but still represent a sea change in the way the community itself reacts to local elections. Many other established blogs have been covering the race both from the right and left but new sites devoted exclusively to the district and the candidates are an exciting development that help give power to those who have a computer and a desire to be involved.

Note: Correction Say No to Jack Davis is not run by Phillip Anderson, I sincerely apologize for the mixup. I was working on this post and I was looking at the wrong information. With that said you SHOULD STILL check out his very insightful posting at The Albany Project. Again I apologize to him and to you for the mixup. I will do better in the future. Say no to Jack Davis is run by Phillip Anderson who regularly blogs at The Albany Project and whose public profile states “I do some consulting on web strategy for various state candidates and related entities.” The writer at War Kids Relief is listed as Will Hunting who assured me he lives in the 26th district and does not work for any of the local Congressional campaigns.

Jack Davis’ latest radio ad is a parody of the song ‘Build Me Up Buttercup’ entitled ‘Who’s Going to Clean it Up‘.

Transcript:

SINGER: Who’s going to clean it up, (clean it up) politics, baby, Jack Davis will, (Davis will) on Capitol Hill And then best of all (best of all) he’ll take the job for just a buck a year, so the message is clear, We need Jack (we need Jack) as our Congressman, darlin’ Let’s send him to Washington And let Jack clean it up (clean it up) the government, he’ll get it done!

FEMALE Voice Over: Let’s clean up government from special interest money by voting for Jack Davis, a successful businessman with a lifetime of creating jobs and common sense solutions. Let’s say “no” to politics as usual and “yes” to an independent voice for Western New York. That’s Jack Davis!

SINGER: We need Jack (we need Jack) as our Congressman, darlin’ Let’s send him to Washington And let Jack clean it up (clean it up) the government, he’ll get it done!

Reader Rich sends news that the Yates County Democratic Party will be opening its campaign headquarters on Saturday, with Eric Massa in attendance. Yates, the smallest county in the 29th, went Kuhl by 8 points in 2006.

Reader Tom asks if Randy Kuhl took any money from indicted Senator Ted "Hulk Tie" Stevens [R-AK]. The answer is no, as far as I can tell from Kuhl's finance reports.