1. Bodie Out. Pettyjohn In.
The political world in western Sussex returns to normal. While there will likely be some confusion on the R side, Eric Bodenweiser‘s full withdrawal from the 19th Senate District race virtually guarantees that Brian Pettyjohn will keep this crimson red senate seat in the R column come November. Bodenweiser’s name will not appear on the ballot. While voters indeed will have to write in Pettyjohn’s name, the DOE will make it as easy as possible for people to do so, and I don’t think it will be close. Don’t blame Jane Hovington. She stepped up and took one for the team, whatever that team might be in western Sussex. Which begs this thought: You’ve got a moribund Democratic Party in western Sussex. You’ve got a growing Latino and minority population base that has next to no voice in the official party structure there. A party structure that is almost gone. I see a great opportunity to build a new and more inclusive Democratic Party in western Sussex. With grassroots leadership from these growing populations. It’s not as if there’s gonna be a revival of the good ol’ boys Democrats there. There’s a political vacuum. Fill it, amigos.
2. Who’s More Unfit for Public Office: Carper or Pires?
It’s one thing to run a vanity campaign. It’s quite another thing to run a vanity campaign seemingly based on the premise that you want everyone to know that you’re an asshole. The irony, of course, is that Alex Pires challenged a Democrat who is virtually not a Democrat at all. Senator Bipartisanship Unilateral Surrender, Tom Carper. Pires had the money and clearly the ambition to mount a serious challenge that could well have attracted a lot of progressive votes. Instead, he plastered the News-Journal with his grinning gargoyle mug, littered the roadsides with more signs than Burma Shave ever envisioned, and claimed that Carper was a wifebeater and in failing health. And now, apparently, a day trader. Those claims, serious indeed if true, with absolutely no proof. Anyone who reads this blog knows I will not support Carper ever again. He’s a wholly-owned subsidiary of the banks, and his quests for bipartisanship have led him to, among other things, enable Alito and Roberts to become Supreme Court justices. Carper apparently missed Mitch McConnell’s pledge to screw Obama at every turn so that Obama would get the blame if/when the economy doesn’t recover. (More on that later). However, Pires’ incendiary charges have made clear, at least to me, that he is singularly unfit to hold public office. Unable or unwilling to demonstrate that he is a viable alternative, he has simply thrown shit at the wall. Some of it recycled shit. It’s even possible that some of it is true, but he has brought nothing new, just wild-eyed assertions. Plus, as a progressive who won’t vote for Carper, I’m not bothered in the least should Pires’ assertions that Carper may not finish out his term prove to be true. I’d rather have Markell or Denn naming a replacement than to have Pires ensconced in D. C. for six years. Didn’t have to be that way, Alex, it was just the path that you chose. You should have kept your real self hidden. You’re no more fit to hold office than Christine O’Donnell.
3. R’s Worried About Their Slate.
Well, wouldn’t you be worried if you were them? The R’s have a statewide slate that has raised no money, generated next to no enthusiasm, generated next to no volunteers, and, with the possible long-shot unlikely exception of Ben Mobley, has no shot at winning. And, unless I’ve missed it, there is next to no ground game being put in place by the R’s. This in no way means that the D’s are gonna sweep all the contested legislative races. Keep in mind that the D’s had huge edges in both houses going into 2012. There ain’t that much more fertile territory to plow. And also keep in mind that R’s largely dominate central and western Sussex County. But it does mean that they’ll have much tougher races in the 4th and 5th Senatorial Districts (Katz/Lavelle and Cloutier/Counihan) than they might have hoped six months ago. And there could well be a surprise or two in Kent and Sussex. Plus, it makes it that much more difficult for the rare R recruiting successes this year to pull out victories. This assertion is not a figment of my imagination. I somehow was invited to talk about the 2012 elections on a panel at the Riverfront Center last week, and there were several prominent R’s there. They were the ones talking about this and lamenting the current state of affairs. These are, to put it mildly, not Tea Party types, and they and their supporters have spent this election sitting on their wallets.
4. Best/Worst Radio Ads I’ve Heard.
“Ladies and gentlemen, direct from the AMTRAK Northeast Corridor, wearing the well-worn knee-pads, please welcome Tom Carper and John Carney–The Supplicants!” Gawd, those treacly tributes to bipartisanship are sickening. At least they probably saved some money by having the same idiot write and produce both ads. You know, there’s too much partisanship in Washington, but they’ve crossed the aisle so many times that they are, well, Republicans-lite. No, they ‘get things done’. You know, like Alito and Roberts on the Supreme Court, Tom. One reason why they’ll never be an effective tag team–you don’t even need to pin them. They unilaterally surrender. Makes for bad rasslin’ and bad radio ads.
Man, the Rethug brand must really be toxic in Brandywine Hundred. Otherwise, why would the Vice-Chair of the Republican State Committee claim that he is an ‘independent voice’? He is the most partisan R legislator in Dover, he’s never met a microphone that he doesn’t use to make a partisan point, he’s certainly not independent of the pedophile-protecting/anti-choice wing of the Catholic Church. I don’t think you can find a single issue where he has declared his independence from Republican boilerplate or Papal infallibility. Yet, his radio ads make sure that the word ‘Republican’ is never mentioned. Greg Lavelle an independent? News to me. And to the Rethugs who prefer him and John Sigler locked and loaded together at all times.
The best radio ad, by far, that I’ve heard this cycle, is Tom Gordon‘s. I’m sure that fact-checkers might have a field day with it, but the ad features upbeat, even peppy, music, and an announcer seemingly struggling to cram all of Gordon’s (alleged) accomplishments into the limited space of the ad. If this ad is designed to make wayward D’s feel better about voting for Gordon, I think that it has succeeded.
That’s it for this week. What’d I miss, and whaddayathink?