Around the Tea Bag Friday
Two stories dominated the Delaware blogosphere this week: 1) John Carney upsetting the Delaware Way and perhaps forcing Mike Castle into retirement (one way or the other), 2) the gathering of homogeneous crowds who think their taxes have been raised even though they got a tax cut and who love tea bags, or teabagging, or both. You know, I always thought conservatives are wild in the bedroom, but I never thought they’d be so open about it. Later today in our Open thread I will have a compilation of DL’s coverage of this week’s events.
JOHN CARNEY FOR CONGRESS
A little birdie told us early Wednesday morning to be sure to watch Carney’s website that day. And we did.
Nancy had it first from watching TV.
John Tobin of Politics by the Numbers reports on Biden and Carney’s campaign cash.
John notes that Castle only raised $71,500 last quarter, hardly the numbers of a candidate planning to face a tough competitive reelection or a competitive Senate race against the son of the Vice President.
The person doing Charlie Copeland’s blog says that Carney’s announcement was probably poorly scheduled and was overshadowed. Go figure.
And Nancy reminds us that Carney may have a primary with Scott Spencer.
TEABAGGING PHOTOS AND VIDEOS (Not Porn, but still probably not safe for work).
The return of Pornstache!
Rick Jensen’s doing his best Glen Beck impression.
WDEL reports from the Waterfront, via Resolute Determination.
Brian’s favorite photo.
OBSERVATIONS AND LIVEBLOGS
Steve Newton tells us why he won’t be teabagging. TMI, Steve!
The observations of Brian Shields, and Dana Garrett
The liveblogs of Brian Shields (Georgetown and Laurel) and Matthews (Wilmington).
Mike Matthews reads Brian’s posts and notes, as he predicted, that these gatherings are not really about taxes and spending. It is just a right wing bitch fest that they lost.
Kavips notes that 1/16th of 1% of Delaware’s population showed up. Still, that is a large amount of confused and deluded people in one place. May constitute a mental health crisis.
Nancy wonders what kind of badge is available for the Boy Scouts attending the teabag parties and then rescues Sharon’s comment noting that the GOP had a private closed doors reception following the open public teabag party. What, you thought the GOP was going to change? Those inspired by these parties will so find themselves in the same place as the religious right: used and abused.
What Brian would say if given the chance to speak.
Burris complains that the state GOP is aligning itself with the teabaggers. Personally, I think Burris just wanted to give himself and the DE GOP plausible deniability.
Dana rescues a comment from Delaware Politics noting that these parties were nothing more than sore loserman events, but he does credit Burris with his complaint that the GOP should not have allied itself with the parties.
FOR THOSE OF US WHO PREFER COFFEE
Kavips notices that President Obama is a Kavipsian.
Paul Clark is back! Still the same though. Paul Clark’s former aide turned whistleblower is being paid to do nothing.
Congratulations to Shirley’s nephew for his acceptance at Clemson!
Brian reports on the targeted raids of Seaford’s bars
Dana on the passing of the beloved Harry Kalas.
Kavips reports on the continued shady dealings of the Baker family of Sussex County.
Tyler catches Mayor Baker enjoying fine dining on the city’s dime at the Hotel DuPont while he urges sacrifice elsewhere. Tyler… run for Mayor!
The DE GOP had to get into the act or risk becoming Delaware’s third largest political party behind the 90 or so Libertarians.
Brian’s favorite picture points to the possibility that some of this teabag acid might splash onto Mike Castle.
I grant that it is a slim possibility, as Rick Jensen and the rest of the nit wits will never place blame where it belongs as long as a certian Congressman has an “R” after his name.
Great roundup! This week has been so much fun. The teabaggers are just so precious.
Perhaps this is the beginning of a new movement, I don’t know. If it is, it will be able to last outside of heavy promotion on Fox News. We’ll have to wait and see whether these tea parties lead to people organizing themselves.
Tea bags? Instead of a knife between our teeth, we have the drool of Chuck Norris on our lips!
Verily, the decline and fall of Chuck Norris parallels the decline and fall of myth itself.
Will Governor Markell retract all of his very negative political attacks on John Carney and support him for Congress?
You guys focus on the GOP but you forget that nasty fight.
Were it not for over 3,000 Republicans who switched Carney would be Governor.
Thanks for faux outrage, Mike. While you were teabagging, Allan Loudell was interviewing John Carney and hearing about how they have kissed and made up.
We appreciate your concern, but save it for your primaries.
There’s irony in that statement about trying to heap disdain on nasty primary attacks. At least the campaign didn’t use proxies to levy them.
Mike,
I don’t think anybody here missed you when you were away. (hint, hint)
I don’t think that the Internets wants another outbreak of router sockpuppets.
You know Mike, you really shouldn’t focus on the nastiness of our primary battles considering the skeletons in your party’s closet.
But since you are making our business yours, I would note that any bitterness was quickly dispelled on election night, when Carney himself was the one who informed Jack that he won, and Markell let it be known that he would appoint Carney to the Senate if he had the option.
Their words about each other have been nothing but kind since the primary. So rest easy, Mike.
Carney was much more of a class act than Minner. Carney and Markell made up almost immediately. I think the state will be in great shape with both of them representing us.
OK, seriously…have I completely forgotten, or did Markell actually have any negative-Carney attacks? I do recall the negative ads against the state party machine for funnelling funds to Carney and support, etc., but that was against them, not Carney (or my interpretation, anyway). Were there specifically negative-Carney attacks?
You are correct, Smitty.
I was a committed volunteer in Markell’s campaign. Not once did I hear a negative comment about Carney from a campaign official. The campaign was positive, all about Markell’s plan.
On the Del Dems financing of Carney, until we get a new chairperson, I refuse to donate to this outfit.
On Protack, he is trying to stir the Dem pot. There was a time when I respected Mike for some of his ideas, especially on health care. However, the way he has been behaving lately, with all his blatant negativity, that respect is evaporating. If he feels angry, it should be directed at his own party, which treated him like dirt!!!
There were some and they were centered around associating Carney with the Minner debacle. It wasn’t the shrill and not-exactly-truthful attacks more like criticism) , but most of the ones I saw Markell made directly to Carney’s face.
I have a point here and it’s to the Captain’s campaign tactics. Of course, he really couldn’t afford ads, so via internet proxies and appearances (gatherings or radio/newspaper/TV opps), he never missed a chance to go negative at some point. I am not talking about your garden variety “I do this while my opponent does…” I mean things like derogatorily referring to Jan Ting as “The Professor” (there is no spinning this into a positive light), commenting on personal issues pertaining to Bill Lee, the character bashing via internet proxies, and so on. It’s real fun to see the comment here about Markell and “his very negative attacks…” once you recall that laundry list. Please!
That was what I was referring to Smitty with my allusions to his skeletons. Protack knows how to run a nasty primary from experience. And when one does not have clean hands he should not be creating faux outrage about our primaries.
If the Captain could conduct a more honorable campaign perhaps he could get people to take him more seriously.
Am I the only one left standing who when he sees someone throwing shit, even wonders what kind of a sick person spent all night knee-deep in the outhouse to dig it up?
Am I the only one who thinks that someone willing to do such, is properly undeserving of whatever leadership role he seeks?
I think we all pretty much summed that up here, anon.
I remain grateful that I never witnessed Jack and John in any of their uncomfortable face-offs late in the primary.
“On the Del Dems financing of Carney, until we get a new chairperson, I refuse to donate to this outfit.”
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Perry, I’ve been wondering about how Daniello has managed to keep under the radar while Paoli got thrown under the bus (not that I wouldn’t have assisted, metaphorically speaking).
I’m not sure Daniello is going to continue as state party chair. Any party leadership struggle has been really under the radar, as far as I can tell. Last I heard, people weren’t even sure if Daniello was going to run again.