This is basically just a local interest story, but since there are a few people from upstate New York who read this, I thought I’d use the space. (It’s also a political post, completely off-topic for this blog normally.)

“Samara Barend”:http://www.samaraforcongress.com/index.shtml is the Democratic candidate for the NY-29th district in Congress. The seat’s Republican incumbent is not recontesting, and the district isn’t overwhelmingly Republican, so this is a Democratic pickup opportunity.

The 29th, as this map shows, runs up to but not into the borders of Ithaca. It stretches over a wide area, from just outside here almost to the western border of the state, and up to the southern suburbs of Rochester. But the main population centre is Elmira. Elmira is nominally just down the road, but since that road is a construction site right now it’s a little further away than normal. But still it’s close enough by that people could potentially help out.

NY is pretty solidly in Kerry’s column, so there’s little on the ground (as opposed to over the telephone) that we can do up here to help take back the White House. But if Samara wins that’d be one seat closer to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which would be a good result.