We have a tie for today’s award. It goes to both the Delaware Democratic and Republican State Executive Committees. Both groups decided to anoint people as their “officially endorsed” (read: preferred) candidates; the Democrats in the Treasurer and Auditor races and the Republicans in the US Senate and House races. In all but one of these races (Auditor), the endorsed candidate lost.
For the second election cycle in a row, John Daniello and his gang decided to endorse their favorites in a statewide primary. Picking Velda Jones-Potter over Chip Flowers, in spite of the fact that many RD’s in Kent and Sussex recommended that they not endorse only energized the Flowers campaign. And for the second election cycle in a row, Daniello spent party funds on his pets, I mean picks. Two years ago, they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of John Carney. We all know that Jack Markell won, and being the true gentleman that he is, Carney went right out and campaigned for Jack. And now Jack is returning the favor so we will have and entirely Democratic Congressional delegation in DC. When will Daniello get it through his thick skull that those of us who are on the RD committees and the rank-and-file members of the party DO NOT want the state party to get involved in primaries. It’s divisive and it smacks of smoked-filled rooms, or in Daniello’s case, a backroom at a pizza parlor.
As for Tom Ross and Company, well, we all know what happened there. They bet the bank, literally, on Castle and Rollins and they ended up with bupkis. Well, they actually ended up a St. Sarah wannabe who cannot win in November and an inside the beltway bureaucrat-turned-developer who thinks liberals are Nazis. Their decision to inject the party apparatus into two contentious primaries, and having broken Reagan’s 11th Commandment, has spelled the death of the GOP in Delaware as we know it.
The Democratic and Republican Party Executive Committees – our Asshats of the Day.