I always knew that DL’s stuff was read by the Underground Wingnuts of the Rethuglican Party. However, it was not until Andy Sere of the RNC tried to twist my ‘completely objective and non-partisan’ look at the group of GOP would-be challengers into a diss of John Carney that I realized that (a) official GOP sources read the blog and (b) they make even less sense than the usual Looney Toons.
Somehow, I am alleged by Mr. Sere(al Prevaricator) to have pronounced John Carney as ‘mediocre’. If I used the word ‘mediocre’ or any variation thereof in the piece, it was aimed at the undistinguished field of Rethug wannabes. I know John Carney. I know that John Carney has earned everything he’s achieved. Raised in Ashbourne Hills, a definition of a ‘working-class community’, Carney has had more interaction with average Delawareans in any given week than, say, Charles Bouvier de Flanders Copeland has had in his entire life. (Charlie: Paying off political prostitutes like Norman Oliver does not count.)
Carney has earned everything he’s achieved. An undersized QB whose leadership skills thrust him to All-State honors and a scholarship to, and degree from, Dartmouth. A distinguished graduate of the U of D’s MPA program, someone who served as the state’s budget director back when the budget was balanced, and someone who really does quietly work at the community and school level w/o ever calling the cameras in. In other words, and I mean this with the utmost respect, Carney is a workhorse, not a show horse.
Now, let’s get to the quote that Sere has seized on. I did write in my piece that I supported Markell for governor b/c I felt that John lacked the ‘vision thing’. Let me be clear what I was saying or, more likely, should have said more effectively. Since Pierre ‘Call Me Pete’ duPont’s administration, which was highlighted by legalizing usury, lowering taxes on Delaware’s wealthiest, and making Delaware’s economy co-dependent on the public’s insatiable thirst for credit cards, every single governor has governed within that vision. If one is to follow Sere’s pardon-the-expression logic, Governors Castle, Carper and Minner qualify as mediocre. He may be right, but that’s another screed for another day.
Suffice it to say that when I made my ‘vision thing’ remark, it was in the context of my strong belief that Delaware needed a Governor with a new vision, someone who would reexamine and reshape government during these extremely challenging times. I believed that Jack’s strengths were better suited to that job than John’s, and that’s all that I meant. I had even argued earlier in vain when the hopeless Tom Carper tried to broker a deal between the two that Carney should run for Congress then. But that, of course, would have placed Tom’s Separated-At-Birth brother at risk.
In my opinion, Carney would be an excellent Congressman. His working-class roots are a tremendous asset. Only elitists like Sere would argue that that type of life experience leads to mediocrity. I see him, unlike Carper and Castle, as someone who never loses sight of the needs of average Delawareans. He is very smart, someone who can read complicated budgetary legislation, for example, without needing staffers to translate it for him. Someone who has demonstrated his ability to work very well with others, and someone who doesn’t need the limelight to be productive.
So, the next time someone tries to twist my words around to make them mean something that I didn’t mean, take it from the horse’s butt mouth, not a Rethug mouthpiece.