At this point, there is no other word for Mike Castle.
He is a liar.
Congressman Castle, who’s running for the Senate, says if he were a Senator now, he’d have joined fellow Republicans in voting to end debate on a 15 billion-dollar jobs bill. […]
Castle says he likes the bill that will be voted on [in the Senate] later this week because it’s more focused on creating private-sector jobs than a job creation measure that passed the House months ago or last year’s economic stimulus package.
That bill that Mike Castle liked so much passed the Senate last week. It went to the House and passed yesterday.
Mike Castle voted against it.
Mike Castle’s flip floppery is now so blatant, frequent, and instanteous, that you cannot chalk up this latest betrayal to a simple change of mind on his part. The truth is Mike Castle was never going to vote for any jobs bill, and he will never vote for any jobs bill. He lied to us last week. Each and every one of us.
The only possible way you can defend him is to say that Castle never said he would vote for the Senate bill if he were in the House. And if that is the case, then you have to assume that Mike Castle is so insane that he votes regularly against bills he likes, and that he enjoys being made appear as a fool.
Delaware does not deserve a Senator so mercurial and so deceptive.
Chris Coons, you have the floor…
Excellent post, DD. The sad thing is Castle is going to walk away with this Senate seat.
If Coons doesn’t highlight this over and over again in his campaign, he’s missing his only real chance to be Senator this year.
Let’s see what Coons has to say about this over on his campaign website:
…ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I’m sure the focus is on raising money right now, but it would still be reassuring to see some response to Castle’s failure to support legislations such as this!
Two points to make:
1) I agree with the general sentiment that this is exactly the kind of thing that Coons needs to highlight and talk about every day from now until November 2. The biggest part of his message should be, “It doesn’t matter one bit what Mike Castle says, or what he really believes in. If elected, he’ll act exactly like what he’ll be: a Republican Senator. If you want to know what that means, look at what the rest of them do, almost without exception.”
2) I think “Flip-floppery” is now my new favorite word.
Coooooooooooooooooooooons!
Wait. If his campaing thinks bloggers are dirty hippies, we should be telling him NOT to respond to this.
I’m sure the focus is on raising money right now
I am waiting to see how much fight he has in him, and how much Democrat he has in him before I open my wallet.
This week my Senatorial money is going to Bill Halter. So far that looks like a better investment for Delaware.
I think another word to describe Mike Castle is arrogant. He thinks that he can pay no price at all for saying one thing and then doing the opposite. He takes the voters of Delaware for granted. Or, perhaps I should say, he takes the media in Delaware for granted. People won’t know of Castle’s lies and arrogance if no one talks about them.
I think there’s a lot of truth to that. The sad fact is that the vast majority of voters have little idea what is going on with their elected officials, except for what the media decides to tell them. And there seems to be very little desire on the part of the local media to challenge him on anything. He figures he can do pretty much anything he wants, so long as he acts like a nice guy. Sad thing is, he’s probably right.
It is also worth noting that Castle appears to be increasingly a puppet of the RNC. He must have been pressured very strenuously to have him a) not retire, and b) not simply run for re-election. I suspect that Castle five years ago would have voted for the jobs bill, but Castle today collapsed under the House Republican leadership’s pressure.
I wouldn’t call Castle arrogant as much as defeated, by the Republican party, and now merely the Republican Party’s tool. He is a shell of his former self, voting with the R-bloc to save himself the heat he would face if he actually voted for Delaware’s citizens.
is Carper and Kaufman stumping for Coons?
Good question, DV. Kaufman will because both Obama and Biden will. Carper is the question mark.
What is up with Coons’ web site? Not any policy opinion page. What are his positions?
Who is on his campaign staff? I am cynical enough to want him to immediately demonstrate that he is not running for office with county support staffers like Angie Basiouny (hired just after he decided to run –and Basiouny replaced McCleod who is curiously still on the payroll).
The guy is starting out with a strategy to let the DE DEM HQ duke it out with Castle while Chris sits back with ‘clean hands’? HQ has a presser a day on Castle and don’t even mention Coons. Coons can’t take a stand for Delaware? Coons has no public fight? Coons has no public voice? Is it going to be private sessions and a who’s who of access to the ‘golden forehead’?
Coons is prolly busy collecting money from Carper’s buddies…
is Carper and Kaufman stumping for Coons?
Let’s start with Coons stumping for Coons. Gotta walk before you can run.
Yes. Chris “any day now” Coons.
This week my Senatorial money is going to Bill Halter. So far that looks like a better investment for Delaware.
Charlie Pierce suggests that you save your money:
“OK, so my moles in Arkansas tell me a few things about this Bill Halter guy who’s decided to primary Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Footdragging) down in Arkansas. He’s talks pretty on TV and he’s certainly rolled out his campaign in a superbly professional manner. However, he apparently has what Woody Allen once called “a losing personality.” He’s alienated most of the Arkansas political establishment, not because of his stalwart defense of progressive politics, but simply by being something of a dick. In other words, he’s not going to get a lot of help, even by those people who are disgusted by the fact that, on any issue worh a damn, Blanche Lincoln is pretty much a pillar of Maypo. (Added bonus – Lincoln is chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. And even though she’s so tied into big agri-business that she should be resting in a coop owned by Tyson Foods, that’s still a pretty decent amount of pork — literal and figurative — available to a pretty small state. She loses and away it goes.) What the hell, I don’t think either one of them beats whatever shoeless Christian yahoo the Republicans throw up there, anyway.”
so my moles in Arkansas tell me a few things about this Bill Halter guy
LOL, that is like asking sources in the Minner administration about Jack Markell circa 2008.
Halter sounds good to me so far. It is the perfect opportunity for progressives to concentrate their forces on electing “better” Democrats, and send a message to people like Tom Carper.
Anon: Don’t dis Mr. Pierce, who is one of the gutsiest, hardest-working reporters still in practice.
If you want to “send a message,” there are wiser ways – unless your discretionary income overflows to much that you can divert it to pay the consultants for a long-shot challenger in a reactionary state.
anon,
I also think Halter is a good investment. He’s more progressive than Lincoln, Lincoln will lose the general election anyway, Halter is known statewide. What do Dems have to lose? A race that inspires Dems to actually go out and vote may be the only chance to keep that seat. There’s no way that Lincoln, running as Republican-lite, would inspire Dems to vote.
John,
The Senate is full of dicks. At least this one is fighting for the right principles.
John “ConservaDEM” Manifold, you come to this progressive sight only to fail and fail at your game.
Nancy’s tossing her spare cash into the Arkansas sinkhole too?
Nancy sounds unfamiliar with Pierce. She certainly is clucking nuts about my politics.
Pierce or no, Blanche Lincoln is a Dead Senator Walking as of right now. No real reason why the people of Arkansas shouldn’t hear from someone who doesn’t seem to be afraid to be a Democrat. That would be what primaries are for, after all.
Cass – No love lost here for Blanche’s weak approach. That’s not the point. Rather, anon’s desire to invest his allowance in a lost cause like Ark-Sen is the surest waste I can imagine, other than a check to Kendrick Meek.
On the other hand, if anyone wants to toss interstate Senate contributions, there’s Fisher or Brunner, or Hodes or Robin C.
I’m a fan of Democrats running everywhere — lost cause or no. People should have a chance to really hear what a Democrat has to say, and taking a chance to do this in this race seems like a decent idea. He may certainly lose, but people will get to see what the real deal begins to look like. Besides, Halter is getting the fun startup cash right now. Whether he can sustain this once he starts talking is something else altogether.
Halter is getting the netroots moneybomb Coons is leaving on the table.
For a progressive, there is no downside to a Halter candidacy. Lincoln was going to lose to a Republican anyway. If Halter wins, we get a better Dem. But if he loses, we get the Republican we would have gotten anyway.
Nancy: There is a firewall between the county staff and Coons’ campaign staff. Coons isn’t that stupid to fall into the trap of having county workers do political work on county time. No sense falling into the Gordon/Freberry mess all over again.
Wwll, cant’ Coons demonstrate it? Why hasn’t his website got contact information? Why isn’t he transparent? Forgive me but I have seen firsthand examples of bad coming out of his administration.
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Blanche Lincoln is running as as if she were a Republican. There are rumors that she’ll just jump over to the GOP now that there’s a primary.
So it is great to have Halter to speak for the DEM agenda.
She certainly is clucking nuts about my politics.
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John I have seen you defend the indefensible and bleed DEM blue for ConservaDEM Carper.
There is no phone # I could find on his website,but the Chris Coons campaign offers a couple options to contact:
by mail-
Chris Coons for Delaware
P.O. Box 9900
Newark, DE 19714
by email-
chris@chriscoons.com
I’m sorry but there’s no way that Lincoln jumps over to the GOP. She only need to look at the example of Parker Griffith to see what would happen. If long-time Republicans aren’t good enough for the GOP purity brigade, there’s no way that a Democrat-turned-Republican will be either.
I’m with anon, there’s no downside to giving money to Halter in Arkansas for progressives. Lincoln will lose anyway, and it’s sending a message to the rest of the Democratic party – we expect you to be a Democrat.
BTW, Chris Coons has an Act Blue page that looks fairly active, Act Blue – Chris Coons.
Nancy –
What do you want him to demonstrate? Do you want him to take you on a tour of his campaign office and show you that no county workers are there? That the computers and phone lines aren’t run through the government building?
If so, why don’t you just ask him?
I do agree they ought to have a phone number on the web site, as well as position papers or at least issue statements. It’s been a decent time since he declared his intention to run – that formal announcement ought to be coming real soon. He’s got about another week or so in my book to put up or shut up.
Well, I signed up for his contact list. I am waiting for an email blasting Mike Castle for voting against the jobs bill and connecting it with Castle’s hypocrisy and voting against the interests of Delaware.
Not because I need to get that email, but because then I would know he has a functioning campaign system, and that email would be going to the media which would (hopefully) pick up the story and begin setting Coons’s narrative for the campaign.
If you don’t define yourself, your opponent will do it for you. Any day now we will start getting news stories about how Coons is a blank slate on the issues.
The conventional wisdom about Castle is wrong. Coons can’t win unless he starts tearing it down.
I agree with every single word in that comment.
Plus, a short September-October campaign favors Castle. Castle is like 95 years old, so the longer he has to campaign, and the more he is on the defensive, the better. Start now.
Once Coons does start jabbing, he will start drawing RNC attack ads that he will have to deal with. So he needs to start defining himself now to inoculate himself against those ads, otherwise they will be devastating.
I agree that Coons needs to define himself and where he stands on national issues. But just as (or maybe more) importantly, he needs to define Castle. I keep beating this drum, but Coons needs to eat away at the Mr. Nice Guy Castle image and define him in the only relevant way — as a Republican. Sure, in the House maybe Castle’s voted against the GOP mainstream once in a while, but it’s very obvious that that don’t fly in the Senate anymore. I find it hard to beleive that the majority of Delawareans want a Senator who does nothing but vote the way Mitch McConnell and Jon Kyl tell him to. The only problem is most don’t know that that’s what’s coming with a Sen. Castle.
I’m really surprised we haven’t seen Coons blasting Castle for voting against the the jobs bill he supported. In fact, the complete silence of the media on this has been perplexing.
When the debates come in October, I want to see Castle tired and peevish, not tanned and rested.
My one fear (well, not counting geese. they’re big, and have you ever had a flock of them come after you? not cool, man) is that Coons might be too nice to run an effective campaign. I’m afraid he might see hitting Castle on his votes and flip-floppery as being a negative campaign, and try to stay away from it. I just don’t think he can win by only defining himself and running on his own positions. He might be a good guy, an effective administrator, and have a good grasp of the issues, but no one’s going to mistake him for William Jennings Bryan or even Barack Obama. “I’m Chris Coons, if you like me, vote for me” is not the best way for him to run. He needs to make peopl aware of why they shouldn’t vote for Castle, but I’m not sure he will.
I kinda wonder if Coons didn’t wound Castle a little bit with his fundraising email featuring PAYGO. Castle responded to it and I wonder if he voted against the jobs bill for that reason. Anyone check his website lately – has he responded yet about the job bills vote?
I just checked his site, and I can find no specifics of any kind. Not about his positions, not about his opponent or his opponent’s positions. I know it might seem early to him, but I think it’s time to start getting some sort of a public campaign going. Even if it’s just making a statement from time to time. High school girl basketball players are getting more ink than he is.
Do you want him to take you on a tour of his campaign office and show you that no county workers are there?
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…er..yes.
When he ran in 2008 he was the only DEM invited to have a campaign office at the NCC DEM HQ where I am told he spent an unordinant amount of day time (its only a 5 minute jaunt down from County Hall South).
Where is his campaign office now? P.O.Box doesn’t cut it. No phone. No office. No staff? So far he is running his campaign out of the same NCC DEM HQ as aforementioned. But they don’t ever breathe his name in their anti-Castle pressers. WEIRD.
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He needs to make peopl aware of why they shouldn’t vote for Castle, but I’m not sure he will.
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That would indicate that this is not a serious run. Rather a dry run by Coons to gear up for 2012 when supposedly Carper retires or 2014 when Castle is out. Disgusting. Placeholder and typical Delaware Way. Give Castle his golden Senate finale.
Nancy, remember county employees CAN work on campaigns, just not when they are on the clock with the county–this is what got the last administration in trouble. I’m sure you will see members of his team going to campaign events and such with him–if they work for him, they support him. That doesn’t mean they are running his campaign for him through the county.