Ted Blunt officially ended his campaign for Lt. Governor Friday, by filing the appropriate paperwork with the Department of Elections. Sure, he suspended his campaign months ago, but his name was still on the ballot, and Friday was the deadline to remove it.
This simple act brings me back to Tom Carper’s secret plan to avoid the primary hatched over a year ago.
The plan was for Markell to run for Lt. Governor, Carney for Governor, while Matt Denn would run for reelection as Insurance Commissioner and Ted Blunt would either run for reelection as Wilmington City Council President, or perhaps challenge Mike Castle for Congress. Markell, Carney and Denn had agreed to the plan, but Blunt refused.
And here we are today, except that Blunt’s candidacy never took off, and suffered from lack of fundraising.
Now, this deal smacked of the Delaware Way, and with the deal, there would have been no progressive challenge to the establishment this cycle. But if Blunt had run for Congress, with Obama on the top of the ticket raising African American turnout, perhaps Mike Castle could have been defeated.