The endorsements that follow represent the first major election season that Delaware Liberal has had multiple Editors contributing their unique perspectives to evaluating the strategies, the campaigns and the candidates of Delaware elections. We wanted to bring together all of this knowledge and these strong opinions to develop the first ever Delaware Liberal slate of endorsements for the Democratic primary.

We created a list of the major (statewide) Delaware offices and circulated that list among the Editors. Each Editor needed to select a candidate to endorse, and write a short paragraph explaining why the endorsement was made. We circulated each others’ endorsements, critiqued them, argued over a few, adjusted the endorsement statement, then asked each other questions again. The endorsements (and endorsement statements) we provide today were made by unanimous consent of the Editors.

Since this is Delaware Liberal, we provide endorsements of Democratic candidates only. We provided an endorsement where the Democrats have a primary which is why the highly liked Matt Denn does not get an endorsement in this cycle. But we do enthusiastically look forward to endorsing him in the General.

We did not provide an endorsement for the Insurance Commissioner race. While we do think that there are competent candidates here, we are troubled by the fact that Gene reed failed to live up to the very high standard set by Matt Denn in NOT accepting campaign contributions from those he will need to regulate. We don’t want to see progressive standards and values rolled back in places where they so clearly worked.

We are looking forward to hearing what you think of our endorsements. And, for the record, these endorsements come with no campaign contributions whatsoever for the endorsed candidates just bragging right to be endorsed by the most widely read political blog in Delaware.

Signed,

The Editors

Over the next few hours we’ll be rolling out the endorsements begining with this endorsment for the office of New Castle County President.

New Castle County President:

Bill Dunn has never sent an email to developers using his developer wife’s email account, let alone an email saying that he knows how much of a pain the system is for a poor little developer trying to pave the county. He is a respected and effective community leader who understands the need for smart growth practices in NCCo and who will provide honest and ethical leadership in County Council. Delaware Liberal endorses Bill Dunn

Who cares…as Tom Brokaw said, this is just a “speedbump” for her.

wrote e-mails that harshly criticized Alaska state troopers for failing to fire her former brother-in-law and ridiculed an internal affairs investigation into his conduct.

The e-mails, never before made public, were shown to The Washington Post by a former public safety commissioner, Walter Monegan, who was fired by Palin in July. Monegan has given copies of the e-mails to state ethics investigators to support his contention that he was dismissed for failing to fire Trooper Mike Wooten, who at the time was feuding with Palin’s family.

and don’t forget it is a bipartisan investigation…

Palin had promised to cooperate with the legislative inquiry, but this week she hired a lawyer to fight to move the case to the jurisdiction of the state personnel board, which Palin appoints. Her attorney, Thomas V. Van Flein, challenged the jurisdiction of Stephen Branchflower, the retired prosecutor hired to investigate and report back to the legislature by the last week of October.