For those late to the show, the Beast Who Slumbers is counting down his list of favorite 2010 Republican targets. He has chosen these criteria in making his list: (a) the race must be contestable, and the D must have at least some reasonable chance of winning; and (b) ‘Bulo must prefer change to the status quo (it’s HIS list, after all). For example, Sen. Dori Connor is not on this list even though her seat is clearly vulnerable b/c ‘bulo likes her and prefers her to the alternatives.
The order of the list is based on ‘bulo’s sense of ‘least likely to switch’ to ‘most likely’.
9. New Castle County Council District 2-Bob Weiner
This one is personal. Or, at least, as personal as anything can be to someone who writes in the Third Person.
Bob Weiner is a megalomaniacal narcissist and, even grading on a scale, one of the biggest phonies in Delaware politics. At one time a Democrat, Weiner was all set to run for a vacant State Senate seat (Sen. Robert Berndt had retired), agreed with his opponent to have the Democratic Party commission a poll which determined that he was the strongest candidate, at which point his prospective primary opponent, Jim Funk, graciously dropped out and endorsed him. Then, at the last minute, he backed out of the race, leaving the D’s high and dry. He then resurfaced soon thereafter as a Rethug (the R’s had big majorities in Brandywine Hundred in those days, and Weiner is/was nothing if not a coward), defeated low-key nice guy Richard Cecil in an R primary for the Council seat, and since has packaged himself as a reformer, ‘the last political virgin’, as he likes to put it.
(Meandering Aside: Weiner’s sin wasn’t switching parties, it was about leading people on and misleading them about his intentions. It puts the lie to his purported raison d’etre for public service, that virginity thing. Now back to the verbal immolation already in progress…)
That, um, virginity,was lost (for at least the third time) after he got a political job in the State Public Defender’s office (someone should investigate that ethical sewer, BTW), but was terminated after he got caught accessing the records of a County Executive Assistant while on his state job, and circulating information about the official via e-mail. This was after he’d had a falling-out with his former friend Tom Gordon (they both were officers in the Council of Civic Organizations of Brandywine Hundred at the same time, Gordon the President and Weiner the Head of the Zoning Committee). Weiner realized that Gordon was toxic and, like Mike Castle pretending he’d never even met his long-time friend Kermit Justice after Justice’s indictment, Weiner had to wash the Gordon stench from his phony reformer record.
He is a relentless self-promoter. People find it harder to get off his e-mail list than to avoid online come-ons from Nigeria. Several years ago, the Delaware General Assembly actually introduced a resolution targeted at Weiner limiting the number of e-mail messages public officials can send out to their mailing lists. It didn’t pass, nor was it intended to, but everyone knew that it was aimed at Weiner who, among other things, would relentlessly send out solicitations for his wife’s business (which may or may not have been located in Nigeria) to public officials.
When Council expanded, Weiner had a safe Republican seat. However, like much of Brandywine Hundred, the demographics and registration numbers have shifted, a lot of R’s hate him, as do most other elected officials, and more and more D’s have gotten elected in his territory. What’s left of his powerbase is CCOBH, and, even there, a lot of his allies have either retired or had a change of heart. It’ll take a credible D or, perhaps equally likely, a successful R primary challenger, but this one’s doable, albeit a bit of a longshot.
While his defeat wouldn’t have much impact on County government, erasing this self-congratulating phony from the public payroll would be truly cathartic for the Beast Who Slumbers. Someday, listaholic El Somnambulo will share with you his 5 Favorite Daily Catharses. Today is not that day.