Dem Insurance Commissioner Primary
This is a tough one. One the one hand we have Gene Reed who has 25 years of experience and all the insidery connections that go along with that and his fundraising does not give me the impression that he’ll be as tough on insurance companies as Matt Denn has been.
On the other hand we have Karen Weldon Stewart who has the suspect resume of a perennial candidate in search of an office.
I wish I was more impressed.
Who are you backing? And who should I support?
Hmmmm…this is interesting.
Some posts you expect to get tons of comments and others you don’t.
With the 23rd RD Committee and the PDD Endorsement Committee, I have met with all three candidates. The PDD process was much more in depth, and gave me the opportunity to pose detailed questions to each candidate (in addition to reviewing their responses to our survey).
I like all three individuals, but each has at least one significant weakness. If Gene Reed would only have pledged to stop the acceptance of future contributions from individuals at companies to which the department awards contracts, I would have personally endorsed him.
I haven’t endorsed a candidate in this race. I will back whomever the voters select in September, confident that they will be far better for DE than Brady.
LOL, Paul. Obviously, your blind partisanship is failing you here. You need to meet Brady before you write him off so quickly. I’ve met all three candidates and Brady’s got what it takes. He may be a Republican, but his ideas for the office of Insurance Commissioner aren’t that far off from how Denn has handled the office these past few years.
I chair the social justice committee of our church (UU Fellowship of Newark). We have a candidate forum on Saturday August 23rd for primary races. We will host one in October for the general election. I will have the opportunity to hear Brady and the Dem candidate, so I will be able to see whether to abandon my blind partisanship.
I will indeed keep a non-blind eye out to be impressed by Brady at the October forum.
I don’t care who wins the primary….it’s Brady for me in the general. Yes, I am a registered D. If you subscribe to ‘vote for the candidate and not the party’ as I do it’s a no brainer. To date that’s the only race I intend to ‘crossover’.
My two cents….
I’m voting for Reed because of what he is… An expert in the Insurance industry. Mike, your a real smart dude, but sometimes with this race it seems to me that even if Reed turned out to be George Wahington-incarnate you wouldn’t vote for him. You wrote that awesome piece and got a ton of credit for it, but your not backing off it. From what I hear, he is a great guy and knows his shit. I mean we talk about Stewart being a perennial seeker of office, but what about Brady? He’s run for so much and does a ton of other work down in Sussex. Let me be clear: I am young and just a casual observer, but I thought hard about this after everyone was ripping Reed about where his contributions came from… If you were gearing up for a run for office, who would you seek for money early on in your campaign? Friends and family? Well most ADULTS acquire friendships in their workplace and the guy has been working there for 25 years. So this is basically where I stand on it. I trust that his friends were his early contributions and that we will see where hes at in his next report.
Fire away mike…
“…a perennial candidate in search of an office.”
Well, not everybody can have a Senator for a daddy.
Gene Greed the ultimate one with experience? Right, he has been there 25 years, and all that time permitted the “graft” that has consumed that office.
Karen Stewart never met an “insurance company insider” she didnt like. Harris McDowell hired her after she switched from supporting Charles Potter, Jr, to McDowell who promised her a job. He kept his word. She was supposed to “searching for a real health insurance plan for all Delaware”. Harris is a supporter of single payer as are 18 other legislators. But Stewart never bothered to “fact find” or read all the independent studies done on single payer”, and instead used her time in that office to make another run.
Tom Savage who has support from police and fireman is supporting single payer and has worked in legislative hall for 20 years to get the fire/police benefits.
John Brady will get my vote. John stated on Indepth Delaware show in the spring that when he is elected to insurance commissioner he will give up his other positions and work full time as commissioner. At least Brady is open minded, and honest, and I believe will win that race.
So if you are a D who likes Brady, do you not cast a vote for IC in the primary, or do you vote for the weakest candidate in the D Field, to improve his chances? Any of them willing to make it an appointed office rather than elected?
liz – I thought Karen Weldin Stewart used to work for McDowell years ago when the Senator was a good liberal. I didn’t know she stuck a knife in Potter’s back. Has she been working for McDowell while he has been fighting Blue Water for his friends at Delmarva? Thanks for the insight.
In my opinion, if you are going to vote for Brady anyway, no matter the Democratic candidate, it is your duty to abstain from the Democratic Primary in this race. But that is just my opinion.
Draw the Party Line // Jul 29, 2008 at 6:27 pm
liz – I thought Karen Weldin Stewart used to work for McDowell years ago when the Senator was a good liberal. I didn’t know she stuck a knife in Potter’s back. Has she been working for McDowell while he has been fighting Blue Water for his friends at Delmarva? Thanks for the insight
The answer to your question is “YES” she has been working for him during the BWW battle.
I think her most notable experience to be IC is her night security job at a shoe store.
Gene is knowledgable about the industry and one hell of a good candidate to fill Denn’s shoes. KWS has made a big deal of his contributions but only because when she asked the same people for money, they didn’t give it to her. I’m voting for Gene with no reservation whatsoever about his integrity.
The fact that Gene doesn’t see a conflict of interest is quite remarkable no matter how you feel.
I am Karen Weldin Stewart’s campaign manager and I am surprised how misinformed some of the people on this blog are about her.
1- The only office she has ever run for is Insurance Commissioner, a job she has trained for all her life. Go to her web site and read her bio and her agenda and everything else.
2- Karen is on the board of People’s Settlement, the Addiction Coalition, a member of the A. Philip Randolph Institute etc.
3- The people she has helped without fanfare and publicity could fill a phone book.
But don’t believe me do your homework.
4- John Brady is a nice fellow but in the debate he, Karen and Tom Savage had on television (Ch.28) last March, you couldn’t help but notice that every time Karen said something, John would say how right Karen was.
5- Karen’s credentials and proof of them are on her website. Go to “Awards” and then click “Credentials”
In her last campaign Karen was offered money by a very large insurance company through their executives and turned it down. One of our supporters who is very close to insurance companies offered to raise money for her from them and she turned it down. She does not accept money from insurance company executives, insurance company PACS and companies that have contracts with the Insurance Department. To do so would be a conflict of interest and a conflict with the interests of the people of Delaware.
I have know Karen since 1987 and she is one of the most honorable, honest and capable persons I know. Take a closer look!
Practically every single statement about Karen Weldin Stewart’s background in her campaign literature is false. She was never a VP of any Fortune 500 company. She is not and never has been a business owner and has never met a payroll and paid business taxes as she claims. Her “Weldin Group” is a group of one, she herself and no one else. Her “business” address is actually her home. She has never taken over “20 insolvent insurance companies” as “virtual CEO”. While she may have held the title of deputy receiver at some time in the distant past and had some other insurance experience, her role was mostly at an administrative level, sending collection notices to the insolvent companies’ reinsurers. During most of the years between 1999 and the very recent past, when she managed to obtain the patronage job of “legislative aide”, Stewart was either unemployed or worked in retail stores as a clerk. She can’t speak without a prepared script and writes like a first-grader. No way could she have authored any legislation as she claims, and no way whatsoever is Stewart qualified to manage and regulate the insurance affairs of the State of Delaware. A win for her would be a disaster for Delawareans. Vote for John Brady!