I have to give Joanne Christian some credit for meeting with me last week. I’m a Democratic blogger who has made no bones out of the fact that Republicans start off with a serious handicap with me based entirely on the fact that they are members of an organization that has turned this country into something monstrous and unrecognizable.
She was willing to try to make up some of that ground by meeting with me, and why not? I’m just the kind of Democrat that she is going to have to win over in order to have a shot of becoming a State Senator.
Did she do it? No. She was nice enough but I’ll be voting in favor of Bruce Ennis and against Joanne Christian on November 3rd. Here is why.
Joanne Christian would like everyone to believe that she is basically right of center “non-partisan” in the mold of a Mike Castle who she identifies as one of her political heroes. She’s done a little bit of work with Bethany Hall Long that seems to substantiate that claim, but what is someone really saying if that say that they want to be like Mike ?
You would have to be either clueless or intentionally playing dumb to think that Mike Castle style stewardship over the past six years has been beneficial to anyone other than Mike Castle. I don’t think she is clueless, so my fear is that she is intentionally playing dumb. Like so many “moderate” Republicans who have remained silent during the last seven years of GOP corruption and maladministration, Joanne Christian has bought into a Republican code of silence. When I asked about what her voice would be like within the national GOP I was under whelmed by the her claims to be unaware or not interested in national issues. With that approach, I could easily see her taking part in this kind of GOP revelry:
Grapevine on the most recent Republican Natl. Convention:
“Even U.S. Rep. Michael N. Castle, usually as moderate in his rhetoric as in his politics, got carried away, declaring in his Thursday morning breakfast speech, “If there were two people who could vote named Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, then John Kerry probably could get elected.”
In the same way she leaves her party ID off of her signs, she apparently leaves her discernment at home when it comes to the GOP. Since a State Senate seat is a practically a lifetime sinecure it is worth knowing what her impact, if any, would be on the terribly diseased organ called the Republican Party.
Is that unfair? Is it too much to ask that someone running for state Senate accept some of the responsibility for the Republican drive to shield the President and Vice-President from accountability, undermine the constitution, and undo our 231 year old system of checks and balances?
After meeting with Christian, I think it is fair. She is smart enough to know what is going on in her party and the world. The fact that she shrugged is damming. It speaks to her character.
“Bullshit!” you might say, “She is not going to be voting in the Iraq war, she is going to be voting on funding for DelDot. ”
Yes and no. George Bush did not fall out of the sky one day and take power. He came to power by working a system that depended (and continues to depend) on party functionaries like Joanne Christian staying quiet. Voting against Joanne Christen I will be “thinking globally and acting locally.”
So…90% of you have tuned out by now – but I want to add that I’ll also be “thinking locally and acting locally” by voting for Bruce Ennis.
Christian takes a lot of credit for things that she had a little to do with. The fact that the Appoquinimink School District is frugal seems more an expression of the Superintendent’s success than hers. That the district is has a decent academic reputation is a fluke of geography. New Jersey has a first rate, well-funded public school system. Lucky MOT! Additionally, due to the distance to Wilmington, many top students stay put rather than allowing themselves to get skimmed off by Wilmington Charter. Bad luck Brandywine, Newark, Christiana, and McKean!
Ennis, on the other hand, has taken a little bit of credit for his significant accomplishments.
He is regarded as the father of the statewide paramedic service. He is an advocate for open government and he co-sponsored HB 128 which would extend Delaware’s Children’s’ Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to include reduced-cost health insurance coverage of children for families with personal incomes up to 300% of the Federal Poverty Level.
Ennis co-sponsored SB 180, a bill that would reduce treatment caseload standards of Division of Family Services’ caseworkers from 18 to 12 for the safety, permanency and well being of Delaware’s children.
Regarding votes that Christian would tend to have voted the other way, Ennis co-sponsored HB 167, which allows adult patients in a hospital to receive visits from any individual from whom the patient desires to receive visits.
He was the primary sponsor of HB 186 that would address sprawl by preventing county and local governments from permitting new subdivisions in certain areas.
And Ennis co-sponsored HJR 9 condemning the genocide occurring in the Darfur region of Sudan and urging President George W. Bush and the Delaware Congressional Delegation to continue to work with the international community to halt these human rights violations, to impose appropriate economic sanctions, and to bring humanitarian assistance and lasting peace to the Darfur region.
Regardless of the fact that he is running against a Republican, that is a track record worth rewarding.