Posted on 03/05/2010 12:38:10 PM PST by Former Military Chick
New York Democratic Rep. Eric Massa will resign from the House on Monday, according Massa chief of staff Joe Racalto. While it’s the latest in a string of bad PR the Democrats have taken this week, Massa’s exit will actually help House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in her quest to pass health care.
Massa announced earlier in the week that he would retire due to health issues. Shortly after his announcement, allegations of sexual harassment surfaced in the press.
Few congressional elections draw the kind of national attention that Erica Massa’s did in 2006. Even fewer draw an equal amount of attention when a candidate runs again after a failed first attempt, as Massa did in 2008. Now the 51-year-old representative from New York’s 29th District is the center of attention again, this time for announcing his retirement just as allegations surfaced that Massa sexually harassed a male staffer.
Four years ago, Massa was a cherished underdog. In a 2006 article titled, “They served, and now they’re running,” the New York Times profiled a handful of anti-war Democratic veterans who were running for Congress. While the Times played up his military credentials — 24 years in the Navy, including stints working under Gen. Wesley Clark — Massa argued that there had been a “fundamental change in the paradigm of politics” since the start of the Iraq War. Veterans like him could publicly oppose the reasons for going to war and still succeed politically, whereas John Kerry’s opposition to the Vietnam war sunk his presidential campaign decades later.
Even though opposition to the Iraq War was Massa’s top issue in 2006, progressives saw him as overly conservative, citing his opposition to new gun control laws and the fact that he was formerly a Republican. Anti-war sentiments were strong enough on the left, however, that Massa raised more than $377,000 online from far-left donors despite their reservations.
Massa’s conservative cred served him well, too, and the race looked close — closer still when Republican candidate Randy Kuhl’s ex-wife alleged that Kuhl had pulled a shotgun on her not once, but twice.
The 29th was still too conservative for Massa, who lost to a pro-war Kuhl with only 49 percent of the vote.
Following his loss, Massa told Esquire that he was cleaning out his garage when he his family told him that he had to run again. Massa was broke and exhausted, but his memory of the founders, he said, buoyed his spirits.
“Look, half the men who signed the Declaration of Independence were either in debt or bankrupt,” he told Esquire. “The remaining half, most of them lost all their possessions. The only reason Monticello didn’t get burned to the ground was that the British patrol missed the road. In South Carolina, among the Revolutionary leaders, all of them were either hung, had their houses burned, or their family slaughtered. You scratch your head and say, ‘They were fighting for the same things I’m fighting for, and all I’ve got to give is credit-card debt?’”
In an effort to round out his platform in a congressional district that would ultimately go to McCain, Massa added health care to his list of concerns. His own bout with cancer in the late 1990s became one of his stump subjects.
“At my last physical,” Massa told Esquire, “the doctor said, ‘Doing this again could kill you.’ And I said — and this is true, hand to God — ‘My not running for Congress could result in hundreds of soldiers getting killed. So you tell me where the risk balance is.’ This country is in danger of losing the United States of America in one generation. So it’s not, Will you run again? it’s, How could I not?”
Such rhetoric served Massa well, and his star continued to rise until March of 2008, when it seemed his campaign would be derailed by Eliot Spitzer’s scandalous resignation as governor of New York. According to the Washington Post, Massa had accepted campaign funds from Spitzer, and “returned the cash but only after the NRCC circulated three freeze-frame photos of Massa and Spitzer together, taken from one of Massa’s own campaign ads, which featured the words ‘trust,’ ‘integrity’ and ‘respect.’”
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/03/04/a-brief-history-of-eric-massas-short-congressional-career/#ixzz0hKvi8Cky
BINGO! They don’t care what they have to do to anyone, they cannot complete the coup without seizing control of health care. It is a MUST do.
She will need 216 votes instead of 217. Georgia Rep Nathan Deal was going to resign to run for Governor, but is delaying so that he can vote No. That made it 217 to pass. Massa’s resignation brings the number back to 216.
Wouldn’t it be perfect if Pelosi is a vote short...
I am near-certain that a special election is required. This district is the most conservative in NY State (think rural farmlands).
FOX NEWS says there will be a special election.
Yes Massa and No Massa!
NY-29
Massa not waiting for next January. Special election forthcoming (and will the GOP screw up a THIRD time in NY for a winnable race) ?
House members can’t be appointed. The seat remains empty (I believe).
Massa - Special Assistant to General Weasely Clark and served in the newly minted terror Muslim statelet of kosovo.
What a slimeball.
So true, like the inbred cousin of global swarming...
Was the John Patrick Bedell berserker act a diversion to get attention away from the now crumbling Democrat coalition in Congress?
Because NONE of the news is good for Democrats this weekend.
Probably. The only thing in worse shape than NY Dems is NY Republicans.
That Dem voted no....
This is bad for our side, IIRC.
You think Nancy couldn't have switched him to a Yes?
From MSNBC First Read.
Well, then, caravans of ACORN-loaded buses must be heading to New York.
Thanks for the heads up. I saw that he was in a REPUBLICAN leaning district. I’ll try to see if the other info was wrong.....oh, wait...yes, I DO remember the incident you’re talking about.....
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