‘The Lower 41’: Fool’s Gold

“Things are seldom what they seem, skim milk masquerades as cream.” Gilbert & Sullivan

Inspired by DelDem’s incisive district-by-district analysis, today I focus on two districts where the conventional wisdom anticipates highly-competitive contests. The contrarian in me strongly disagrees. Feel free to express views contrary to the contrarian. Vociferously.

Many think that the 18th Rep . District (again, follow along on the district maps here) offers up a titanic struggle between the powerful former Speaker of the House Terry Spence and first-term incumbent Mike Barbieri. I think that it’s far more likely that Barbieri will pile up a significantly larger margin this time, even in this purportedly Republican year. Here’s why:

1. Spence is a terrible campaigner and, despite being Speaker, ran a terrible campaign in 2008. Despite being Speaker and despite having strong union support, not to mention the support of the House Rethug staff, he ran a bare-bones mom & pop campaign in 2008. His signs (black lettering on a white background) looked like they were done in someone’s garage. He’s not gonna have the Rethug staff this time, what with bigger fish for them to fry and the likelihood (one would hope) that Speaker Gilligan will not allow them to turn the 11th floor of the Carvel Building into Campaign Central as they did in 2008. Besides, Spence had a fallout with leadership in his own caucus. Even longtime friends like Bill Oberle became estranged from him.

2. Spence is unlikely to have the support of organized labor this time. The only thing that continued to prop up the Potemkin Village of Terry Spence’s electoral success was organized labor support in the district. Spence rarely had a serious opponent. And, it was understandable. As Speaker, Spence displeased more conservative members of his caucus by placing labor bills on the agenda and by putting labor-friendly R’s in control of certain key committees. It was a mutual co-dependency. The Speaker is now Bob Gilligan. Do labor leaders really want to piss the Speaker off so that Spence can come back as a powerless back-bencher? And Mike Barbieri has done nothing to piss off the labor hardasses.

3.  Conventional ‘Rethug Year’ calculations do not apply in this district. First, the numbers are almost overwhelmingly daunting. 6822 D’s; 2944 R’s’ and 3035 I’s. Hard to see an incumbent D in trouble where 53.2% of all registered voters are D’s.  The district also combines the two key strands for D’s in New Castle County: the blue collar Carney partisans and the Newark-area Markell supporters. Again, go back to the map. The areas to the northwest of I-95, and the areas west of Bear-Christiana Road tend to be more Markell territory, and the eastern portion of the district is Carney country. There really is no Republican stronghold in the district. BTW, one thing that Markell and Barbieri had in common in 2008 were endorsements from former U of D football coach Tubby Raymond. That’s one endorsement which meant something. The 2008 primary results for Governor in the 18th were fascinating: 699 votes for Carney, 698 for Markell. While one (meaning I) would stereotypically have thought that this would be a solid Carney district, it was not. Both Carney and Markell will likely work hard  here. Carney needs to roll up a huge margin in the 18th vs. Her Royal Ladyship Michele Rollins, and Markell will certainly want to work hard for one of his earliest supporters, and the ticket as a whole. The 18th is sure to be targeted by D’s as part of their Get Out the Vote effort.

4. This has all the earmarks of a pathetic vanity candidacy. Kind of like Brett Favre, except nobody really wants him back. Spence’s departure from Dover was strange, almost like he had burnt so many bridges that nobody was willing to come to his rescue last time. This time, they’re simply not there. Spence has not really parlayed his years as speaker into much. He’s gotten a couple of ‘pity’ token lobbying accounts, but he’s come a-cropper as opposed to other politicians -turned-whores. Roger Roy comes to mind. Here’s Spence’s puny list:

Terry R. Spence, 26 Freeport Road, New Castle , DE 19720

Channel Pilots, LLC, 24 Jefferson Avenue, Pitman , NJ 08071

Correctional Officer’s Association of Delaware,655 South Bay Rd., Dover , DE 19901

International Union of Operating Engineers, 1375 Virginia Drive,Fort Washington , PA 19034.

He has very few R friends left in Dover, especially with Bill Oberle and Vince Lofink gone. He will get virtually no support from the Republican Party or the House Caucus. He is hardly in prime physical condition to campaign door-to-door. His volunteers will likely consist of long-time family and friends. As someone who has always liked Terry Spence personally, I find the whole endeavor to be pretty sad.

5. Barbieri has proven to be a very good representative. Not only has he ‘voted his district’, he’s been a leader on issues ranging from protecting the social safety net to education. He’s an intelligent legislator, hence he’s in one distinct minority in Dover.  More importantly, I think a lot of people in the district realize that he’s a good solid rep.

Absent a concerted and unrelenting labor campaign on behalf of Spence, which I don’t expect, it is very hard to see how Spence can win this race. Likelihood of D retention: 80%. Likelihood of D retention if labor sits it out: 90%.

We now head further south to Kent County, where Del Dem and, apparently, Celia Cohen consider the 32nd R. D. to be a toss-up. IMHO, it’s not close to a toss-up and may end up being only marginally competitive.

I understand why analysts might consider the race as such. First-term incumbents are the most vulnerable. 2008 was a Democratic year, and 2010 won’t be. Got it.

But, every situation is different, and this one looks more like the exception that proves the rule. Let’s first look at the 2008 results. Brad Bennett didn’t just win, but destroyed long-time incumbent Rep. Donna Stone, by a 57%-43% margin.  While Stone may have had a little baggage, she had extraordinary financial resources at her disposal, as she had carried the insurance companies’ water in Dover for years. Her finance report filed 30 days before the 2008 election showed her sitting on a $40K war chest with a month to go. And her year-end report showed that she raised another $15 K in the last 30 days. $55,000 on hand in the last month, and she still only got 43% of the vote.

Now we have a candidate who has NO name recognition and very shallow roots in the Republican Party (she’s changing her registration from I when she can) running. Does the task now look somewhat less daunting for the incumbent than it did three paragraphs ago? Thought so.

Let’s now look closer at both candidates. For better or for worse (certainly electorally for better), the name Bennett enjoys a strong cachet in this part of Kent County. Brad’s late father, Ed Bennett, was a long-time legislator best-known for being a green eyeshade type of budget hawk. The free-spending tag could never be applied to Bennett pere, as he often exasperated D’s with some of his cold-hearted machinations on JFC (Vince Meconi was his willing partner in crime for the one term he spent in Dover). Bennett was also one of those ‘tough on crime’ guys. Both pere et fils were and, I think still are, in tune with his moderate/conservative Kent County district. In other words, a generic ‘he’s a wasteful free-spending D’, which seems to be the Rethug mantra this year, ain’t gonna fly here. Especially with Bennett (admirably, at least on this issue) leading the fight to cut wasteful patronage out of county and state government.

Brad Bennett may have the best name recognition of any freshman legislator. Not just ’cause his dad was  a legislator or ’cause Bennett Security, the family business, is a well-known employer, but also because Bennett ran a really aggressive race last time. The sign war between Bennett and Stone was one of the best (or, if you hate sign blight, worst) of its kind in recent memory.  And, though the old saw is “Signs Don’t Vote”, the people who put those signs on their lawns do. The guy has built a grassroots machine, absolutely essential in an off-year election. I will go so far as to say that he ran by far the best race of all the D challengers in 2008, and you can bet that he’s already got a warehouse full of signs with locations to match.

By contrast, his R opponent, Beth Buzzell Miller, is not even a Republican yet. Based on appearances, however,  she is pert and perky. “Up With People” comes to mind:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaLT1GFNYOc&feature=related[/youtube]

Based on her issues, it’s the same Rethug regurgitation of talking points. A talking-points version of Up With People.

She’s both a tax attorney and co-owner of a gymnastics facility. She’ll bend over backwards to help you find the smallest loophole. OK, almost enough snark, but not quite. One of my friends and favorite sounding boards for my meanderings here recently raised the proposition that any attorney that runs for state legislative office is, by definition, either a bad attorney or an unsuccessful one. The logic being that a successful practicing attorney simply doesn’t have the time to devote to legislative business. I remember an attorney, Harry Terry, who served one term when the D’s controlled the House from 1983-84. He chose not to run for reelection precisely for that reason even though his law office was within easy walking distance of Leg Hall and he was sure to be reelected. Too bad, b/c he was a good legislator with a great wry sense of humor. Melanie George may or not be the exception that proves the rule. But I digress.

On paper, Miller is a strong candidate. However, you have to wonder about an attorney who was quoted in the paper as saying that she hadn’t changed her registration, despite her claim that she’s been an R for years, b/c it was ‘too difficult’ to know when she could. Three words for her: The Delaware Code, standard in any law office.

Joking aside, she certainly is a credible candidate and may well have a political future if the law thingie doesn’t work out. But, the numbers are daunting: 5621 D’s; 3416 R’s; 3116 I’s in a district that gave Obama a 1500-vote edge. And, with Bennett’s fiscal conservatism and business ties, he is sure to enjoy some solid R support.

While I’m sure that the Vicmead Hunt Club cocktail chatter is glowing about this new R in Kent County, I can’t see it translating into political success. A D with strong name recognition and campaign resources who easily defeated an incumbent R with strong name recognition and a huge war chest running now against someone who isn’t even a Republican yet in a district that voted overwhelming for Obama? Even using Chinese algebra, this doesn’t compute as anything approaching a tossup. Likelihood of D retention: 85%.