You're probably not paying much attention to my congressional district here in upstate New York. I don't blame you. Not only don't we have a congressman here in NY-29 (remember Eric Massa? Yeah, we'd rather forget him, too), but you're in good company if you're not paying attention to this race. After all, most of the people who live here aren't paying a bit of attention, either.
And that, paradoxically, is why we just might have a chance at winning this very red district, if someone could just be bothered to give a damn about it.
Or at least that's my reading of the polling that came out on the race today, the very first polling I've seen up here.
The poll released today comes from the fairly well-respected folks at Siena College, and here's the gist of it: Tom Reed, the Republican mayor of Corning, leads Matt Zeller, 44-30, with 26% undecided.
So we're doomed, right? I mean, this is a district that was custom-gerrymandered to be Republican. Eric Massa squeaked in as part of the wave in 2008, but his disgraceful departure soured voters in the district on all Democrats, right?
Well, maybe. Or maybe not. You see, the poll also found that for the most part, none of my neighbors up here in NY-29 has the faintest idea who either of these two candidates is. A whopping 82% of those polled - 82 freakin' percent - have no opinion yet on Matt Zeller. 58% have no opinion on Tom Reed. Only one in ten has even seen a Zeller ad yet.
And here's the cool part: there's a huge opportunity here to form some opinions. You see, "businessman-turned-Mayor" Tom Reed is...a debt collector. A debt collector!
Our guy? Matt Zeller is a good-looking, young veteran of the war in Afghanistan.
Military veteran vs. debt collector. You really think we can't turn this puppy around with some well-placed advertising? It's not like it's very expensive to buy TV in Elmira or Rochester, the two markets that take in pretty much the entirety of this sprawling mess of a district.
A sprawling mess, incidentally, where the voters are a roiling mass of contradiction. If Siena is to be believed, President Obama still enjoys a 48% approval rating here - but 45% of voters approve of the Tea Party, 40% of Sarah Palin, and 30% of Nancy Pelosi.
Siena didn't poll for approval rating of "debt collectors," but I've gotta believe they'd have been somewhere way down below the 24% approval rating of "Congress." Nor did they poll for approval rating of "Afghanistan war veterans," but I'd bet that category ranks way above even the President right now.
No, it won't be an easy race to win. The Republicans will end up drawing some pretty good turnout in the rural parts of this district thanks to Tea Party/racist asshole gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, who's practically the hometown boy up here. There's nowhere near that level of enthusiasm for the top Democrats on the ticket.
But it's races like this, the ones that nobody's paying any attention to yet, that seem to me to be worth at least some effort before they're just cast into the "Safe R" category where all the so-called experts seem to have disposed of this district already.
Remember...it wouldn't take too many flips in districts like this to make up for some of the seats we're bound to end up losing in higher-profile races.
And after putting up with Eric "Tickle Me" Massa, don't we deserve someone decent like Matt Zeller up here around now?
Take a gamble on a long shot. Here's the ActBlue link...you know what to do, right?