In thinking about what the next year might hold for us DE Liberals I think we have to filter our strategy through the reality that the DEGOP is flat on its back.
Being such a pathetic rag-tag enterprise, might make 2009 a year of revolutionary change for Delaware’s Republicans, but I doubt it. That would take leadership and let’s take a close look at who the GOP players are these days.
I don’t know who the real shadowy string pullers are in the DE GOP, but at the public top of the org chart, we have Mike Castle. Mike will be playing for the D’s in Congress for the next 8 years. On a local level I think we can all (R’s, D’s I’s) agree that “party building” was never Castle’s strong suit – so I expect he will be as absent as ever this year.
Then I guess we come to Greenville dilettante Charlie Copeland, Tom Ross and Dick Cathcart.
Copeland’s run for Lt. Governor was meant to lay the ground work for a run for Congress when Castle croaks. I’m not sure he accomplished much with his felliniesque “East Wilmington” strategy and his crappy DENREC props. Anyway, the point is moot. When Vance Phillips hands Copeland the watermellon this year you can write down “41%” next to his name.
Tom Ross showed a glimmer of competence by allowing the D’s to half-ass the recent special election, and he knows how to play GOP inside baseball, but I don’t see any real party building skills from the man who talked Bill Lee out of retirement. He blew an opportunity to cultivate some fresh blood like Tyler Nixon by focusing the party’s Novembers efforts and money on the very Un-Delawarean style Republican Son of Clat.
Dick Cathcart is a street fighter and his confrontational style served him well in the majority, but there is nothing more irrelevant than a minority leader in the house. I expect he’ll spend more time defending his seat in the next two years than trying to turn the GOP’s Island of Lesbos into a Sparta.
That leaves a bunch of impotent hangers on like Mike Protack and Dave Burris. If anything is certain in Delaware it is that Mike Protack will not shut up. So he’ll be running for somthing and we all know how that will turn out.
Burris?…feh.