This morning’s News Journal article reads like it is an unthinkable travesty that Representative Biff Lee (40th) is being challenged in this year’s election by a Democrat. Indeed, the article paints his decade long streak of running unopposed as a great accomplishment.
Perhaps in Stalinist Russia, it is a good thing. Here, in America, where we are supposed to have democracy and choice, the decade long streak of Lee running unchallenged on his performance in the Assembly was an abomination. The Democratic Party should have been ashamed of failing to contest that seat for that long, even if it is with a sacrificial lamb that everyone and their mother knows will long.
As an advocate of the 62 District Strategy, paragraphs like this enrage me:
Even Lee’s long-serving colleagues to the north and east, former Reps. Tina Fallon and Charlie West, frequently drew challengers. And powerful Senate president pro tem Sen. Thurman Adams of Bridgeville faces even token opposition in his re-election bids.
Collins said the lack of opponents for Lee in the past and for state Sen. Bob Venables, D-Laurel, this time around, is probably directly linked to their staying power and time in office. Venables, a conservative Democrat, has been in the Senate since 1988.
“It makes me wonder … if it’s just like, ‘They’re unbeatable, so why waste my time,’ ” Collins said. “You’re putting funds together, you’re putting time into this — and if you’re able to pull 40 percent, you’re feeling pretty good. That’s a little discouraging.”
If you don’t run anyone against an incumbent, well then of course they are unbeatable!!! And if they are unchallenged, then of course they will amass staying power and longevity. Yes, in some districts, the demographics are such that we won’t win except in rare circumstances, but that doesn’t mean we give those 40 percent of the people living in the district no vote or no voice! And since elections do cost money, that is why the Delaware Democratic Party should be spending on races such as Lee’s so as to give an underdog challenger like Barbara Hudson a fighting chance, instead of wasting the money on John Carney.