Biden is Unchallenged by GOP.

I am sitting here in the Delaware Democratic Party headquarters with time to kill before the Progressive Democrats of Delaware meeting this evening. So I thought I would pass along two press releases from Beau Biden’s campaign and then from John Daniello, the illustrious chairman of the state party, concerning the GOP’s failure to field a candidate of their own to challenge Beau Biden for reelection.

First up is Beau Biden:

“Delawareans expect candidates to prove themselves when they are up for election, and that is exactly what I am going to do,” said Biden, who is knocking on doors with Rep. Michael Barbieri this afternoon. “Not having a Republican opponent will not change how I approach this campaign. I have a record of service that I am proud of, one that I will still discuss. I am going to treat the next 62 days the same way I have approached my job as Attorney General for the past four years: working hard to earn the support and trust of the public every day. I’ve enjoyed going to door-to-door all summer long, and am looking forward to continue going to Delawareans to ask for their votes.”

This statement strikes all the right notes in my opinion. It could not be too celebratory, acting as if he just got reelected today, for that would be both wrong and disrespectful. Because Beau Biden does have an opponent.

This guy:

Doug Campbell is a teabagger activist who is running on the Independent Party of Delaware (IPOD) ballot line, although in the pictures on his Facebook page, he appears in front of a Constitution Party poster. He is one of those whack jobs that believes vaccinations are some Orwellian Big Brother conspiracy to do … ah… protect our children from disease. He is very anti-Mike Castle for all the reasons that Christine O’Donnell is very anti-Mike Castle.

The question now is whether Biden ignores this guy. I’d imagine that anyone voting for O’Donnell will vote for this guy, so he might be good for 15% of the general electorate. So, yeah, ignore this guy.

And now onto the Daniello statement, which is kinda funny:

Delaware Democratic Party Chairman John Daniello released the following statement Wednesday in response to the Republicans’ historic decision to not field an Attorney General candidate. Attorney General Beau Biden will be the first Democratic candidate without major-party opposition for a statewide office in 124 years.

“Beau Biden could not be beaten and the Republicans knew it,” Daniello said. “The bottom line is that no Republican wanted to run against Beau Biden because he is an outstanding Attorney General and is very popular with Delaware voters.”

I don’t know about all that. Yeah, Beau Biden has high favorability ratings and had a 50% job approval rating in the last poll I found from earlier this year (since he dropped out of the Senate race earlier this year, polling firms stopped polling on him altogether). So it is unknown if the Bradley affair has taken a hit on his ratings. But I am not sure that the Republicans were scared of taking Beau Biden on if all things were equal. But really, all things were not equal. First, he had a stroke earlier this year, forcing him to take time off to recover. Second, he spent a year away from Delaware serving our country in Iraq. On both issues, it was going to be hard if not impossible for the GOP to criticize him. The Bradley affair and the Del State murder case may have given the GOP an opening but for the previous two incidents, and but for the fact who Beau’s father is. The GOP rightly guessed that giving Beau a tough challenge would bring in the money and manpower from the Obama Administration, which would have the dual affect of energizing Democratic voters and hurting the entire GOP ticket in Delaware.

So by not challenging Biden, they avoid all that. It is a strategy, and probably a good one. But I credit Daniello for making the most of it.