Celia writes with the ennui of someone who has lived through a golden age. She no doubt feels that at this point in her career, she should be breathlessly reporting on the temples being dedicated to the Gods who walked among us; DuPont, Roth, Castle, Carper. She basically comes out and says it:
This was the last of the country club Republicans, the ones who dominated the state in the 1970s and 1980s when Pete du Pont and Mike Castle were the governors and Bill Roth was the senator with breathtakingly national stature, famous for the Roth-Kemp tax cut and the Roth IRA.
Instead of reporting on monuments and signs of apotheosis, she looks over a blighted landscape with squinted eyes, trying to see what she once saw. Instead of the dedication of monuments, she is an ashen courtesan writing about a political party with no candidates.