Sean Barney (D) just sent out an email blast making his primary challenge to State Treasurer Chip Flowers (D) official. Here is his introductory video and the text of the email:
Dear DD,
I am excited to share with you that I am officially announcing today my candidacy for State Treasurer. I have had the honor of serving my country overseas. I have had the privilege of working with two of Delaware’s more remarkable public servants, in Senator Tom Carper and Governor Jack Markell. I see the step I am taking today as a continuation of that commitment to public service.
Delaware’s Treasurer should be a voice for those in our state who seek a brighter economic future for themselves and their families. Effective leadership on behalf of the financially stressed, the middle class and those aspiring to the middle class requires the ability to work with others to get things done. I learned in the Marine Corps that the job we have to do when we serve is bigger and more important than any one individual.
I have been deeply touched by the support and encouragement I have received from Delawareans up and down our state as I have considered whether to step forward and seek this opportunity to serve. I plan to repay those who have placed their faith in me by running a campaign and serving as Treasurer in a manner that will make every Delawarean proud.
Will you join me? Pitch in $25 or whatever you can to show your support and help us build our grassroots campaign.
With gratitude,
Sean
Here are his Facebook, Twitter and his campaign website.
More from the WDEL’s Allen Loudell:
This is an anticlimax: We had been hearing for months that Chip Flowers likely faced a Democratic opponent, and that opponent would be Barney.
No question: This is the Delaware establishment coming after Treasurer Flowers. […]
Barney says he’ll run a positive campaign. (But that wouldn’t stop surrogates from reminding people about the blemishes in Flowers’ record.)
Let the campaign begin. Let’s see if Flowers can argue that the establishment is out to get him precisely because he has exposed the inherent non-transparency of the Delaware Way.
To respond to Loudell on the Delaware Way point, Chip Flowers is the wrong person to make that argument. To go up against the Establishment and the closed government it fosters, you have to be as clean as the snow that fell this morning. I am going to give Barney a chance to convince me he is his own man, and not a Markell puppet.