Democrats rubbed out another five republican Congressmen in the Northeast yesterday, including three in New York, one in New Jersey, and, in a historic victory, finally ending the tenure of New England's last remaining Member of the House, Chris Shays.

In NY-29, Eric Massa succeeded in his second attempt to knock off incumbent Shotgun Randy Kuhl. In NY-13, City Councilman Michael McMahon took Vito "More families, more values" Fossella's formerly safe seat with over 60% of the vote. In NY-25, Dan Maffei will replace retiring republican James Walsh.

So that's that. Republicans just stopped being a national party. Too bad for them.

Daily Kos/Research 2000 released a poll today for NY-29 that matches recent DCCC polling: Eric Massa is slightly ahead of his wingnut rival, Shotgun Randy Kuhl.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 10/7-8. Likely voters. MoE 5% (No trend lines)

Kuhl (R) 42
Massa (D) 49

Good news, if they can use it, for Senate candidates David Nachbar and Kathy Konst.

Sweet. Via Albany Project and Rochester Turning, Eric Massa's first campaign spot of the season.

On the web: Eric Massa for Congress

The Pew Internet and American Life Project recently conducted a poll that should make candidates and campaign people sit up and take notice: a staggering 46% of Americans got information about the 2008 campaign via the internet. This is worth quoting at length, so bear with me.

Furthermore, three online activities have become especially prominent as the presidential primary campaigns have progressed: First, 35% of Americans say they have watched online political videos--a figure that nearly triples the reading the Pew Internet Project got in the 2004 race.

Second, 10% say they have used social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace to gather information or become involved. This is particularly popular with younger voters: Two-thirds of internet users under the age of 30 have a social networking profile, and half of these use social networking sites to get or share information about politics or the campaigns.

Third, 6% of Americans have made political contributions online, compared with 2% who did that during the entire 2004 campaign.

A significant number of voters are also using the internet to gain access to campaign events and primary documents. Some 39% of online Americans have used the internet to access "unfiltered" campaign materials, which includes video of candidate debates, speeches and announcements, as well as position papers and speech transcripts.

In May 2008, 135 million Americans used the search engine Google to search for information on the internet. And here's where Daily Gotham rules the roost in New York: if you're a candidate for office, odds are, our pages are one of the first results for your race.

For example, Ed Towns: the first result after his Congressional page and his Wikipedia entry is, you guessed, a piece on Daily Gotham.

Jon Powers (NY-26): Campaign site, Wikipedia entry, ActBlue, Daily Kos, Daily Gotham, in that order.

Eric Massa (NY-29): Campaign site, Wikipedia, ActBlue, Daily Gotham.

Brian Foley (SD-3): government site, unrelated site, Daily Gotham.

So is it worth engaging blogs, specifically, this blog? If you care about what your voters will see if they type your name into the world's biggest search engine, I'd suggest the answer is yes.

Via TPM, the Cook Political Report has upgraded its ranking of ten House ratings in favor of Democrats. Among them are CT-04 (Chris Shays) from Lean Republican to Toss-up, and NY-29 (Kuhl), also from Lean Republican to Toss-up.

NY-29 now joins NY-13, NY-25 and NY-26 in the toss-up category; of the three seats we took in 2006, NY-19 and NY-24, represented by Hall and Arcuri respectively, are ranked by Cook as Likely Democratic, and the weakest, NY-20's Kirsten Gillibrand, is considered Lean Democratic at this point. The full report (.pdf) paints a staggering picture of republican weakness.

In the money race, most Democrats are eminently competitive, with one glaring exception: the contenders in the Thirteenth. The FEC database reveals more.

NY-13: no data on either Harrison or McMahon. Anecdotally, Harrison has raised about $140,000, with about $40,000 coming in in the last quarter, McMahon supposedly has less than that.
NY-19: Hall, CoH $1,141,961, raised $1,608,537
NY-20: Gillibrand, CoH $2,474,445, raised $3,165,043
NY-24: Arcuri, CoH $590,541, raised $897,684
NY-25: Maffei, CoH $675,661, raised $853,982
NY-26: Powers, CoH $402,137, raised $598,327
NY-26: Kryszan, CoH $206,747, raised $287,508, debt $97,000
NY-29: Massa, CoH $565,320, raised $898,780, debt $75,820

So there's your New York Congressional battlefield; four pickup opportunities - or three and a half, until NY-13 finally gets some real money raised by the contenders, and some tactical defense in the three districts we took in the last cycle. At this rate, we can probably look at sending some ground troops to take out the faltering republicans in Connecticut and New Jersey, where NJ-03 and NJ-07, both open seats, and CT-04 are ripe for the taking.

Daily Kos has been highlighting a new coalition of Democratic challengers with the stated goal of ending the Iraq war in 2009:

What interests us locally in New York State is that two members of this coalition are from New York: Steve Harrison (NY-13) and Eric Massa (NY-29). Here's the press release from the Harrison campaign:

Steve Harrison joins other top-tier Democratic challengers to issue “Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq”
Harrison (NY-13 Staten Island/Southwest Brooklyn), Darcy Burner (WA-8), Donna Edwards (MD4), Eric Massa (NY-29) and 6 other candidates will unveil detailed strategy to end the war

Broken systems produce endless amounts of controversy, and healthcare is entirely typical of the phenomenon.

In Albany, Andrew Cuomo issued subpoenas to several large health insurance companies; the attorney general alleges that various insurers had used a wholly-owned subsidiary of UnitedHealth, Ingenix, to set reimbursements rates for consumers that were artificially low, leading to hundreds of millions in additional costs for consumers and, of course, correspondingly fatter profits for the insurers themselves.

“Ingenix is a wholly owned subsidiary of the industry, and the company is determining the rates that the insurance companies use to reimburse consumers”, Mr. Cuomo said.

Perhaps out of sheer embarrassment, the companies in question had no statement on the subject. As the saying goes, there ought to be a law - preferably an Elizabethan one that involves locking insurance executives in the stocks and encourages passers-by to throw offal at them.

In NY-29, meanwhile, Democratic challenger Eric Massa traces the feudal abuses of the healthcare system to its roots: crappy bought-and-paid-for legislators, specifically, his republican opponent, Congressman Randy Kuhl.

Per Politico, S-CHIP is set to make a return to the floor of Congress today. The original bill was vetoed by George Bush, forcing a return to the House, where the veto override failed by thirteen votes. Two of those thirteen votes came from New York republicans, Randy Kuhl, NY-29, and Tom Reynolds, NY-26. Apparently, children in those districts get along quite well without health insurance of the sort available to both Members as a part of their Congressional compensation package.

Challenger (and netroots candidate) Eric Massa, NY-29, confined himself to the following statement, directed at Kuhl.

"No more dancing around the issue. For heaven's sake Randy, do the right thing for New York's children."

On the web:
Eric Massa for Congress
Jon Powers for Congress

Via a press release from the Massa campaign comes the news that DCCC Chair Chris van Hollen (D-MD) will be campaigning with Eric Massa at noon on Monday, August 27th, at the Monroe County Democratic Committee in Rochester.

Considering both the frosty relationship between the DCCC and Eric Massa last time around, and Massa's narrow loss - 48% to 52% - early involvement by the nationals spells good news for an additional Democratic seat in Congress.

Meanwhile, incumbent Randy Kuhl is being targeted by an activist group, headed by known grassroots guy Ari Fleischer, for whom he's just not enough of a wingnut.

Some people, I guess, are just never happy.

On the web: Eric Massa for Congress

What is it with republicans and actual veterans? They cut their healthcare, let things like Walter Reed happen, start illegal wars, and when push comes to shove, point to yellow-ribbon bumper stickers to cover up their systematic abuse of America's military and the men and women in uniform.

From the 29th District comes another such tale of woe. It starts, predictably enough, with potshots taken by draft-dodger, Certified Wingnutâ„¢ and incumbent republican Congressman Randy Kuhl against Democratic challenger Eric Massa, a retired Navy Vet. In this specific case, Kuhl broke ground with an interesting description of military retirees.

To Kuhl, these aren't retired military personnel - they just don't have a job. This from a professional politician who has served in elected office for almost three decades.

Now, you'd think that even a Randy Kuhl would realize that this kind of slur is somewhat inappropriate. You'd think so, but you'd be wrong.