Tornoe’s Toon: The Quiet Chris Coons
Hey everyone! The folks at Delaware Liberal were kind enough to offer me a spot in their sandbox to post my cartoons, so here’s my first offering. If you’d like to contact me, feel free to drop me a line at robtornoe@delawareliberal.net. You can also follow me on twitter @RobTornoe.
And make sure you pick up The Community News, The Dover Post, The Middletown Transcript or any of the Dover Post papers throughout the state to check out my cartoons every week.
Tags: Chris Coons, DE-Sen, Mike Castle
I am so happy our new contributor is NOT Mike Protack!
Great to have you on DL!
Wow! This is a great addition to the talent pool at DL. Welcome Rob.
Welcome Rob! I’m very excited about you joining us. I know you can’t wait to live the glamorous life of a blogger at DL.
Instantly proving a picture is worth a thousand words. Or ten thousand, if the words are in DelawareLiberal comments 🙂
Welcome. By the way, at the candidates forum, I asked Chris when he was going to ramp up his campaign. He said : a) he had a lot of advisors who knew lots about running Senate campaigns, b) he’d raised a ginormous amount of money, c) he’d been introducing himself downstate, and d) he was being county exec and running and working 16 hour days and he COULDN’T run any harder.
I said, “Chris, we expect you to multi-task.”
Chris has got to realize that we want him visible. Over here at DL we try to have our ear to the ground and we’re just not hearing anything from him. I’d like to see him on Twitter, have his campaign post here and at Daily Kos, be in the newspaper. Yes, we understand fundraising is important, but name recognition is even more important.
I worry that his advisors have been working in too many bigger states. He gave a helluva speech, but to whom? Can’t count on buying ads in the Philly market to win here.
Welcome, Rob. Love your cartoons.
Welcome Rob! Glad to have your sharp observations and wit here…
Nice work! As the son of a pretty good political cartoonist, I’m glad to see some good work on the Delaware political scene. Jack Jurden has been so bad for so long this is a breath of fresh air.
Coons already has high name recognition in NCCo. Campaigns are all about allotting scarce resources. His response to Brooke makes sense–quickly address the name-recognition-shortage below the canal.
His advisors also had him focus on hitting significant fundraising numbers by 3/31/10, which he likely had to do, and which he did.
There’s plenty of time to ‘be everywhere’ in NCCo. Being everywhere in NCCo runs the risk of backlash from ‘why aren’t you doing the job (NCCo Cty Exec) we’re paying you to do?’
While you may not agree with the advice he is heeding, recognize that it is one reasonable take on reality.
Perhaps Spivack may have been in more places in NCCo in March 2006 than Coons was in May 2010, but how did he fare? Give Coons (and his team) some leeway.
and most importantly, welcome Rob!
Sorry, I don’t believe that. I’d like to see a poll to that effect. Yes, it makes sense to get his name recognition up in the rest of Delaware but the bulk of his votes are going to come from Wilmington and NCCo. Coons has to woo Democrats, because a significant portion of Castle’s support is coming from Democrats.
bloggers and activists are very interested in knowing Coons’ stands on every issue. I’m one of these folks, as are you.
‘the voters’ don’t give a hoot, and won’t until MUCH closer to the election.
At this time, a campaign builds a war chest, an infrastructure, and a gameplan.
Coons is actually at a zillion events, given his workload. I was at the Caesar Rodney 5K/half marathon, and he was there with his wife and two sons (one of his sons got an age-group award for his time in the 5K). Chris noted that he is averaging 3-5 hours of sleep a day. Again, allocating limited resources …
Welcome to Rob Tornoe. Follow him on Facebook where he has an unerring ability to give Conservatives fits, probably with out meaning to. And a huge Roger That!!! on Jack Jurden, the anti Thomas Nast.
I’m not looking for him to be everywhere. I’m listening for his responses to Castle’s transparent bullshit andnot hearing anything. Cooooooonsss! Plug in that amp.
One more thing. Coons is laboring under the assuption that castle is popular. He only need like at KHN’s vote total to disabuse himself of that notion.
Paul, it’s not about knowing his stand on every issue. We’d have a completely different political landscape if the electorate gave ANY thought to platform or position, in this state, or any other. It’s not how we do it.
We vote based on whether we believe we’d be invited to the daughter’s wedding. If the candidate seems to recognize our face, smiles when we come up, and asks after our prize Corgi or little leaguer, we vote for them, whether their declared purpose is handing us straight to Satan’s buffet, or not.
Chris is like 30 years behind in babykissing. That’s his biggest problem.
He may have the best national political people in the country, but they clearly don’t know shit about Delaware.
I live downstate and consider myself fairly plugged-in. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of Chris Coons in the last two months. There’s no calendar of events on his Web site. Nothing in any of the local papers. No rollout of the three-county campaign tour that his team promised was just a few weeks away back when.
UI – Yes, Kent and Sussex only have 37 percent of Delaware voters. But you still can’t win a statewide race without attempting to build up some support there. There’s no way he’ll win every NCCO voter, let alone every Democratic NCCo voter – he needs downstate to beat Castle.
Coons isn’t just the silent candidate, he’s the invisible one.
I can’t even get Coons to send me email despite signing up for his email list at least twice. Where is his social media person? Why isn’t he on Twitter. Mike Castle is on Twitter and is starting to use it effectively (not just begging for money). These are cheap and easy to do and don’t require any fundraising at all. I don’t understand why Coons isn’t using the free resources.
Coons is on Twitter: http://twitter.com/coons4delaware
Although his 98 followers and his 13 tweets since February is hardly something to brag about.
I’m following Coons on Twitter. His team rarely Tweets. This is what I’m saying and why we’re frustrated. He has resources available that he’s not using. Perhaps he thinks what he’s doing is the best use of his time but he does seem to be running a 1990s style campaign.
Those defending Chris’ efforts are deluding themselves. Chris isn’t even campaign as hard as he has for his county elections, and yet he should be working even harder. This isn’t a county election, and lets face it a lot of NCC Democrats aren’t big fans of Coons to begin with. My son has more than twice as many followers on Twitter than Chris. Chris has 102 followers, his tweets are a joke. His last one was on March 31 asking all 102 followers to “help me reach my fundraising goal.” That is a horrible use of twitter, but with so few people signed up to get his messages it doesn’t really matter.
I don’t doubt his advisors told him he needs to raise money and that’s true, but he can’t beat Castle by sitting back and doing nothing. His website is a bigger joke than his re-election to County Executive website was. At least on that website he had a list of his events and his schedule. Some supporters claim he’s working day and night, based upon what Chris has told them, others say they have yet to hear or see him, based upon their actual knowledge. I’m inclined to believe those that say he’s sitting back and doing nothing. If he was out there campaigning he would have a link to his schedule, but he doesn’t. Why? I suspect it’s because he hasn’t been going to events. Will he get out in the summer? I assume he’ll at least pretend to make an effort, but Castle has never received less than 55% statewide in any race,and his highest general election total is 72%. Castle does not represent the views of more than 50% of Delaware voters, but many people vote for him out of habit, and have no idea how many votes they disagree with. Chris should not only be out explaining why people should support him, but why Castle doesn’t deserve their support. But he is doing nothing, and it is really frustrating! Martha Coakly lost in Mass in large part because she failed to campaign until it was too late. Coons has little chance of winning the race, but he appears to have given up before he even started.
Until Chris gets off his duff and starts to run with all his heart and try to win this race I will ignore his tweets asking for me to help him with his campaign fundraising goals. He donated over 100,000 of his own money in his 2000 race for Council President, and he worked hard to get elected. He has a lot more money than me, and probably anyone else reading this, so until he starts spending some of his own money, and showing me that he’s in this race to win, I’ll ignore his request for money, and sit on my check book!
“One more thing. Coons is laboring under the assuption that castle is popular. He only need like at KHN’s vote total to disabuse himself of that notion.”
Jason330, Castle won that race by 61%, and Karen got 38%, those numbers don’t support your argument. However Castle can be beat, although it will take a massive effort. Biden won in 1974 because he worked harder than any previous candidate, and Boggs was far more popular than Castle. But Chris has gotten lazy, and he clearly is willing to put his name in the race, but not his heart.
Castle is not popular or a moderate and Coons can win. He will have to work at. Coons problem is in New Castle County where voters know him, many are opposed to him. In Kent and Sussex he is virtually an unknown. If Coons were smart he would be buying time on Ch.28 to get the New Castle County folk on board…and spending his time in the two other counties. It’s the democratic party that could help him win but they as usual sit back until its too late. Labor could do its thing too especially in NCC. But again, they will wait until 2 months before the election to make any move and then have their usual infighting based on their political bosses. I dont think Coons wants it bad enough to do what needs to be done. I know that Karen was in Kent and Sussex until all hours of the day and night. You cannot just attend the County democratic party functions as only a few hundred voters show up for them. Coons will have to hit every breakfast joint, every church group, every car wash to reach the voters. Most voters are not at these democratic rally events. Castle shows up at the most unlikely of places which Coons won’t even know about until its too late.
“If Coons were smart he would be buying time on Ch.28 to get the New Castle County folk on board…”
Oh my aching sides. As if regular people tune in to Channel 28 for any reason but to point and laugh.
Comment by JUST KIDDIN'”Castle is not popular or a moderate and Coons can win. He will have to work at. Coons problem is in New Castle County where voters know him, many are opposed to him…. If Coons were smart he would be buying time on Ch.28 ….and spending his time in the two other counties. It’s the democratic party that could help him win but they as usual sit back until its too late. Labor could do its thing too especially in NCC. But again, they will wait until 2 months before the election to make any move …. I dont think Coons wants it bad enough to do what needs to be done. I know that Karen was in Kent and Sussex until all hours of the day and night. You cannot just attend the County democratic party functions as only a few hundred voters show up for them. Coons will have to hit every breakfast joint, every church group, every car wash to reach the voters. Most voters are not at these democratic rally events. Castle shows up at the most unlikely of places which Coons won’t even know about until its too late.”
Some of what you say I agree with. Coons doesn’t want the election bad enough, either that or he has no clue as to what it would take to win, or he knows he can’t win, or feels the odds are too great and doesn’t want to put in the effort. I won’t claim to have the inside track on which it is, but it’s clear that Coons’ isn’t personally doing what needs to be done to have a snowballs chance at this race, and this isn’t a Democratic year, so a victory will require 100% and right now Conns is giving 1/1000th of his possible effort!
I Agree Coons needs to work Sussex and Kent county hard, as opposed to hardly, but he needs to get up off his hind and work, or admit he’s just a name on a ballot. I don’t think buying time on 28 is all he needs to do in NCC. Regardless of the viewship or lack thereof, Coons can’t win the race on the airwaves, he needs to be out there showing people he wants the race, trying to justify voters supporting him, and educating voters on Castle’s bad votes, start with the Lily Ledbetter bill, let all women in Delaware kn ow Castle voted in favor of big business to discriminate against women. Even Spector (who was still a GOP) and every GOP women US Senator voted for the Lily Ledbetter Act, but not Castle. The guys voting record can’t be supported, but has Coons bothered to spread the word? NOPE!
The biggest problem I have with your post is you seem to be taking the position that it is the Union of the Democratic party’s obligation to work to get Coons elected. Ignoring the fact that a lot of union members can’t stand Coons, even if he was their patron saint, why should they spend their time and energy, and limited financial resources on a guy who at this point has given no indication he intends to fight for the seat? The Democratic Party and the Unions can help Coons, but unless he starts working his tail off, he has no chance, no matter how hard anyone else works on his behalf.
I just went to Chris Coons website after reading some posts here, and it really is pretty lame. There is no issue section, just a short, really short, bio section, and a section to donate to his campaign or to volunteer. What are his positions? I’m going to vote for him, because I’ve never voted for Castle, and don’t intend to start now, but seriously this website is a joke. His links to his facebook page, and his twitter account are equally disappointing. I’m beginning to think that Chris has no intention of trying to win the race. I don’t buy the claim he’s averaging 3-5 hours of sleep a night. First that couldn’t be sustained on a long term basis, and just what is he supposedly doing during the 21-19 hours he isn’t sleeping? He went with his kids and wife to the Caesar Rodney 5K where his son raced and did well. Big deal, it sounds to me like he’d have been there even if he weren’t running for Senate. He’s told people he has advisors that know how to win, really did these advisors advise him on his website? Because if they did I’d fire them immediately and hire 20 poltical science majors from UD, they couldn’t be more inept. Seriously could someone light the fire under Chris, and get him to actually run! I’m starting to get depressed, oh well, at least we’ll get Castle’s congressional seat finally. It is going to suck so bad seeing Castle sworn into Biden’s seat!