Monday Open Thread [2.18.13]
Charlie Cook: “Democrats face twin struggles as they seek to retake the House majority they lost in 2010. First, the chamber has largely sorted itself out. With 96 percent of Democratic House members representing districts carried by President Obama and 94 percent of Republican House lawmakers representing districts won by Mitt Romney, each party pretty much has the seats God intended. The House simply doesn’t have much elasticity right now. Substantial gains would either require Democrats winning a bunch of Romney districts or Republicans capturing a lot of Obama districts. Given this sorting out and the almost parliamentary-style voting we’re seeing these days, either party would require one heck of a head of steam to pick up a lot of seats from the other side.”
Although the federal government “currently puts hemp in the same category of illegal drug as heroin, LSD and ecstasy,” Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “wants to change that,” NBC News reports. McConnell “joined forces Thursday with a pair of West Coast Democrats — Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley — to cosponsor a bill that would allow American farmers to grow hemp without fear of punishment.” How the hell is Mitch F*cking McConnell to the left of Barack Obama on this issue? On medical marijuana and the legalization of marijuana, the President has been very disappointing.
Norm Ornstein of the freaking American Enterprise Institute:
“Think about it: We have a sequester looming, one that could wreak havoc at the Pentagon; a coming series of budget confrontations that create real challenges in the management of the Defense Department; and an ongoing war.
And a little group of willful men and women, including those who have been the loudest critics of the sequester, are keeping the next head of the department from getting into office and beginning the hard job of managing the turbulence ahead.
That’s only the first on a list of irresponsible acts. If National Review is accurate, the unanimous Senate Republican response to deal with our debt problems and immediate budget crises is a constitutional amendment to balance the budget with a cap on spending at 18 percent of gross domestic product and supermajorities required to raise revenues or the debt ceiling. If I were al-Qaida and looking to destroy America from within, I would love to see this amendment added to the Constitution.”
Maybe John Carney can round up some of his Republican buddies and introduce a bi-partisan bill to repeal the idiotic sequester?
Congress is acting like the sequester was some thought-out thing – which it wasn’t.
Been waiting for an open thread to ask this. I’ve got a senior History/Political Science major working on his senior research project. (He was a volunteer with Trey Paradee’s campaign last year if his ideology matters.)
He is interested in researching how people define “The Delaware Way” and in finding some specific examples that are at least a few years old (preferably five). He’s very interested in how the blogging community defines the Delaware Way, where everybody thinks both the term and the practice came from, and some prime examples.
[The reason for not going with current examples of the practice is twofold: (1) he is writing primarily a History as opposed to Political Science paper and therefore has a requirement to deal in some way with the past; and (2) he is asking a lot of sitting legislators to define the Delaware Way and he doesn’t think that he will do that well in the response category if they know he’s going to be writing about their current deals and agendas.]
I told him I would post this for him and we’d see what happens.
Ornstein’s quote can be applied to Republicans in general. “If I were al-Qaida and looking to destroy America from within, I would love Republicans.”
Totally works.
It is well that it is a history paper, because it is fading as a practice.
Steve: Have him get in touch with Celia Cohen. She has written many a paean to the Delaware Way over the years.
OK. Why is my computer screaming the song “You Don’t Have My Number” when I just hit this thread? Do you want me to go away or get fired? I really need some direction here.
Steve,
I think one good example is the uproar among the party establishment that Jack Markell dared primary John Carney for the gubernatorial nomination in 2008. Remember all of Carper’s failed attempts to reach a resolution in both that race and in the Ted Blunt v. Matt Denn primary. Part of the Delaware Way is an established order of Succession, or “It’s your turn to run.”
Another part of the Delaware Way is the preference for civility above expression of partisan differences, and definitely over any negative campaigning. This goes back more than 5 years but the 1996 Governor’s race is a prime example. Republican State Treasurer Janet Reznicki was a rising star in the party until she ran against Governor Carper and employed negative attacks on Carper’s personal life as part of her campaign. She lost the election and saw her political career destroyed.
My own knowledge of the Delaware Way begins with The Swap and then the series of tomato cans Dems put up against Mike Castle. Did the Delaware Way exist before that?
The Delaware Way, as embodied in bipartisan consensus-building legislation, probably goes back to the Pete du Pont administration. After du Pont vetoed the budget passed by the D-controlled House in 1977, the D’s in the legislature and the du Pont administration began edging toward collaboration. The ultimate example of this bipartisanship was passage of the Financial Center Development Act in 1981, which helped make Delaware the high-interest-rate credit card capital of the world.
Numerous examples would follow — du Pont and Wilmington Mayor Bill McLaughlin partnering to broker the deal that kept Al Giacco from moving Hercules out of the city.
Following du Pont were two two-term governors who elevated the “Delaware Way” to an art form — Castle and Carper — so much so that they even swapped jobs, with Castle taking Carper’s House seat when his second term as governor was up. For much of their terms as governor, the House was controlled by Rs and the Senate by Ds, so everyone had to work across the aisle to get anything done.
Regardless of how we feel about the merits of particular pieces of legislation, these bipartisan efforts are generally described in a positive fashion as examples of the Delaware Way at work.
More recently — think Tigani-Minner and just about anything associated with DelDOT — the meaning of the “Delaware Way” has become corrupted, but I would contend that such references have been made primarily by people in the media who don’t understand or recall the original use of the phrase. These sorts of insider deals (and maybe one day we’ll include Fisker, Bloom Energy and Kinder Morgan) have most often been the result of members of both parties sitting down together, outside the public eye, and hatching deals that are subsequently presented to the public as faits accomplis. I would contend that there’s nothing uniquely “Delaware Way” about these episodes — the same sort of stuff goes on in all 50 states — but the “Delaware Way” label manages to get attached when both parties are associated with a specific episode of bad behavior.
I would suggest the student call both Pete du Pont and Mike Castle and see what they have to say. For a legislative perspective, try Bob Gilligan, Lonnie George and Bobby Marshall.
I would co-sign mediawatch’s post. The most obvious example is the Swap, but Delaware has a respectable history f bipartisanship, just to get things done. We’re traditionally a moderate state. Remind your student that we were a slave state that supported the Union, if you need a REALLY historical reminder. And clue him/her into the elections of William Temple and Nat Smithers. This goes back a ways.
That gets pretty close. DD’s mention of Reznicki as a counter example is important though.
It also indicates why Delaware Republicans were viewed as out of step with the hyper-partisan villainy of the national party.
In other words, if you looked at Castle record in Congress he was a down the line party voter – but his “Delaware Way” style was off putting to the scumbags in charge.
How can it be a holiday without a tumblr to celebrate it? This one, called Branding the Presidents, creates a brand for a number of Presidents. Very cool and some of them are pretty good, in fact.
@Geezer: Celia and the Grapevine was the first place I sent him–but thanks.
Steve: The book Celia did with Roger Martin would also be a good resource, though I suspect you already steered him there, too.
I ate a hemp waffle and didn’t get high, but I did get a healthy dose of EFAs. Legalizing hemp is smart for our economy and our environment.
Hemp is a variant specie of cannabis with a level of THC that is almost impossible to detect. You can’t get a high from it in any form of ingestion. In other parts of the world it is cultivated as a crop for its fiber. In the past it has been used for making rope, as shown by the reference to hemp in nautical and other milieus. The fiber can be very soft and is used in making cloth. You may find clothing labeled as being made from hemp. I’ve worn some in the past. It is quite comfortable. It is similar to cotton in its feel and use. As a crop, hemp yields more pounds of fiber per acre than cotton at a lower cost. The American problem is that you can’t tell the difference between hemp and sativa by its appearance. It takes a chemical test in a lab. It is easier to deny hemp as a crop than go through the effort to determine whether, heaven forbid, it is really sativa.
If you can find a copy, “Cannabis, A History” by Englishman Martin Booth(died 2004), Picador, Holtzbrinck Publishers, 2003, ISBN-13: 978-0-312-42494-7 makes a very good historical read. Booth references two governmental reports, one American one European that refutes the claim of a gateway to opiates. These date back to the ’30s and ’40s.