NY25: Dan Maffei Announces 2008 Run

According to Cuse Dem at Daily Kos:

Dan Maffei, who last November came within 3,000 votes of upsetting 18-year incumbent James Walsh in NY-25, announced his candidacy for the Syracuse-area Congressional seat today in a letter to supporters and friends.

Dan did a great job with little DCCC support for most of the campaign, surprising all prognosticators who saw Walsh, who ran unopposed in '04, as unbeatable. Maffei is a great, energetic guy who is a strong progressive, and with our help can pick off another Northeast swing seat.

Check out his website at http://www.DanMaffei.com , read his blog and get involved with the campaign. He's got the experience (staffer for Senators Bill Bradley and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, House Appropriations Committee) and the fresh, new ideas that the people of Central New York are craving after over nine terms of Rep. Walsh.

Friends,


I want to first thank you for all the support and well wishes you have offered me both before last year's election and over the last few months. Our collective efforts certainly changed the political landscape here in New York's 25th Congressional District! Upstate New York is ready for a new direction. That's why I have decided to finish our hard work and am seeking to be our next Congressman in 2008!


To begin the process, I have filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission so that we can start to gather the support and resources necessary to run and win. While this filing is but the very first small step toward victory, it follows the huge leap that we made in 2006 thanks to your help. Thanks to generous contributions and efforts from so many of you, we were able to come out of political nowhere, and, with a message of change and new leadership, to nearly unseat an entrenched 18-year incumbent who had no major party opposition in 2004!


Together, we shook the political establishment by coming within 1½ percent of defeating Congressman Walsh. That's an impressive accomplishment, but there is still much to do. This area of Upstate New York is still exporting too many jobs and young people and not enough goods and services. Congressman Walsh wants to start his third decade in Congress without offering any new ideas or leadership to help change the direction of this area for the better. Furthermore, in an attempt to keep what was once an unchallenged stranglehold on what he sees as "his seat" in Congress, he has played both sides of many issues.


For example, he voted FOR and than AGAINST limits on U.S. military involvement in Iraq, AGAINST and than FOR new rights for workers, and FOR and then AGAINST raising the minimum wage. Flip-flopping is not the same thing as being more moderate. And changing one's image to match public opinion polls is not real leadership.


It's clear we still need change, and the opportunity for change couldn't be better in the presidential election year of 2008 in a district where the Democratic candidate for president won in both 2000 and 2004. After long discussions with Abby and my family and close advisors, I am committed to working hard to earn your support and the support of the voters for 2008.


I will need your help again. Please consider contributing early. I learned in the last campaign that every dollar contributed early (and the earlier the better) helps bring about many more dollars later on. Your generosity helped make my candidacy so competitive in 2006 and I thank you. I hope I can count on you once again.


Thank you very much!


Sincerely,
Dan Maffei


DanMaffei.com

Related Posts:




From Dan Maffei's Community Blog:

Questioning the Proposed Jamesville Coal Plant - March 5, 2007

Senator Clinton pointed this out last week in Volney where the old Miller Brewery is being turned into an ethanol facility starting by converting corn kernels but reportedly with the capacity to develop into the more energy efficient cellulosic ethanol manufacturing. In addition, we have Auburn Biofuels developing a biodiesel plant in Cayuga County, Siemens developing a willow gasification plan in Onondaga County, and we have windmill farms in Madison County and on the Tug Hill plateau with perhaps more on the way.

However, not every new high-tech energy project is necessarily a good thing for our environment or our economy. All of the above projects will be subject to public scrutiny and their developers need to be prepared to answer questions. But the most troubling questions involve a proposal by Empire Synfuel (not to be confused with Empire Biofuels) to build a “coal gasification” facility in Jamesville - literally a stone’s throw from the grounds of Jamesville Elementary School.

Time for a ‘Binding’ Debate on Iraq - Feb 9, 2007

In a world where the tragic death of a model gets more news coverage than a debate over war and America’s place in the world, we are in danger of allowing the debate on the troop surge to eclipse the real issue about when to bring home our 130,000 plus troops in Iraq. We citizens have to keep the pressure on. If we let our elected representatives claim they agree with us and then do not look at their actions, our representatives – Republican and Democrat – might try to avoid taking any true action to bring our brave soldiers home.

Closing Canandaigua VA is Disservice to Veterans - Feb 28, 2007

..as the new Congress started, my opponent, re-elected by just about a 1½ percent margin, chose to leave the VA subcommittee for a different subcommittee (and the change in congressional leadership means he is no longer chairman of anything). So much for his commitment to Upstate New York Vets or our VA facilities. And now, despite his indications during the 2006 campaign that his supposed clout would help, the Bush Administration is shutting down the acute psychiatric unit at the Canandaigua Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Veterans in Central and Western New York are upset and with good reason.