Today Eric is live blogging on three diaries. On one, his regular Weekly Diary, Eric addresses the issue of raising the minimum wage. Another, the Fighting Dem Vets Diary, the FD blogging team has laid out Eric's strategy to cross the divides between local and national and between grassroots and netroots.
And, in this diary, we take a careful look at Eric Massa's profile below the fold. All three blogs will be posted at one time.
Eric Massa for U.S. Congress
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Service: Commander, United States Navy. Eric spent 24 years with the Navy, including his time at the Naval Academy. Eric's career as a Naval officer featured service off the shore of Beirut in direct support of our marines there as well as in the Persian Gulf as the Executive Officer of the strike Destroyer, USS Elliott during Operation Desert Storm. During his career he served on nine ships, leading over 5,000 personnel. Massa´s capstone Navy assignment was as the military aide for NATO's Supreme Allied Command and four-star General, Wesley Clark. Massa worked closely for General Clark during his top-level assignments in Washington, Panama, and Belgium, acting also as General Clark's liaison with Congress.
Family Eric is 46 years old, the son of a naval officer posted throughout the world. Eric speaks several languages. Eric and his wife, Beverly, live in Corning, New York two of the three children are still in school.
Education and Positions: BA and the US Military Academy. Professional Staff Member. House Armed Services Committee, US Congress; worked in the Photonics and automotive environmental divisions of Corning Inc., Corning, NY.
Party: Democrat. Though a Republican during his military career, while on the staff of the House Armed Services Committee he earned the ire of the Republican members by opposing the impending War on Iraq. The final straw came when he went to shake the hand of his former commander, General Clark, outside of a presidential campaign event in Washington, D.C. Reported by Republican operatives; he was forced to choose between his position and his friendship with Wes Clark. He refused and resigned to become a senior aide to Clark during his primary campaign. He registered as a Democrat the first day of the next cycle according to the provisions of New York law. You can read his own take on being a Democrat here: Why I Am A Democrat. His transformation into a Democrat was a process that began in his final year in the military when, recovering from cancer, he was assigned to work with military personnel recovering from diseases and injuries and continued as he ran into difficulties with his superiors as a Republican staffer of the House Armed Services Committee..
Opponent: Freshman incumbent Republican Randy Kuhl. Massa is unopposed in the primary. "Rubberstamp" Randy Kuhl is a DeLay crony who has received money from the indicted former House leader that he refuses to return. He has voted for many Republican initiatives that are detrimental to his district and is extremely vulnerable. You can read about Kuhl's recent flip-flop on Eric's Weekly Kos Diary that is running concurrently with this diary Raise the Minimum Wage. Randy is running scared.
Endorsements and support: Eric Massa is a Netroots Endorsed candidate. National support with official endorsements by General Wesley Clark and Max Cleland. His inaugural fundraiser was thrown by Clark in Washington, D.C. and was attended by Mississippi Representative Gene Taylor and Admiral Crowe. At a recent fundraising event in New York City he was supported by honored hosts, including Attorney General and candidate for Governor Eliot Spitzer and State legislators, Mark Green, Liz Krueger, David Paterson, Eric Schneiderman and Congressman Anthony Weiner. The event was being chaired by Democratic fundraiser Lewis Cohen, who is also Director of Finance for Democracy for New York City. Honorary chairs include retired General Wesley Clark and former U.S. Senator Max Cleland. In his district, in an unprecedented show of unity, all 8 County Democrat Committees have endorsed Eric. The United Steelworkers District 4 has endorsed Massa as well as the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of the United States and Canada. And, naturally, he is supported by the mayors of Corning and Elmira whom he stumped to elect, "building the Democratic Party in NY-29th from the ground up." A video of a speech by Lisa Feinberg-Duckett, Chairman of the Allegany County Democratic Committee and Allegany Campaign Coordinator for Massa, can be seen here: We Are America - But Washington Doesn't Hear Our Voice.
District leanings Kuhl took only 51% in his last (and first) election against a former Hillary aide; District went 57-42 for Bush showing Kuhl's weakness. 2005 local elections went hugely Democratic, putting Dem mayors in Corning and Elmira. These mayors saw victories where in Corning a Democrat mayor was elected for the first time in about half a century - a sign that the tide has turned in CD 29. Long a moderate Republican district, Kuhl has hijacked the district to become a neocon clone. A recent poll shows Eric Massa in a statistical dead heat with Randy Kuhl and an attempt by Kuhl to enlisted President Bush's aid backfired (read about that on Eric's blog: The Big Bush Backfire. This is a district that is considered one of the most vulnerable in the nation - but it takes money to raise candidate recognition and Kuhl, though he has been outraised recently by Eric, has leftovers from the huge contributions of DeLay and others from the last election cycle.
Previous political experience: Senior aide to Wesley Clark's presidential campaign focusing on veteran's outreach. Staff member the House Armed Services Committee of the U.S. Congress. Congressional liaison for General Wesley Clark, supreme Allied Commander of NATO.
Statement: "Vote after vote in both the House and the Senate results in legislation that continues an unending assault on the very backbone of our nation - the hard working families of America that form our Middle Class. It is my responsibility to pass on to my children a nation as solid and as improved as the country I inherited from my parents.... The security of our economic future is not clear and becomes more in question every day. Jobs are being shipped overseas; access to health care is more difficult and more expensive. The deficit fueled by tax cuts and unrelenting government spending has created a true toddler tax of over $27,000 dollars for every new child born in this nation. We are failing to secure the future for our children. This is what brings me here today, and I want to turn that around."
Help Eric on his crusade with the other Fighting Dem vets to take back Congress and put America back on course by contributing to his campaign on ActBlue.