Delaware Political Weekly: April 19-25, 2014

1. Whither Beau?

Yesterday, Hunter Biden emerged to tell us that Beau Biden, the new presumed frontrunner for Governor in 2016, is ‘doing great’. The day before, it was Pete Schwartzkopf. Assuming that they speak the truth, can someone, anyone, explain to me why the Beaudhisattva is incommunicado? Is he absorbing more enlightenment beneath the Bo Tree? I’m serious, can someone please provide a plausible scenario that would explain his refusal to come out and say, “Hi, I’m here, I’m healthy, didja miss me?”  I honestly don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like this. It defies explanation, at least to me. BTW, if you read Hunter Biden’s statement carefully, he doesn’t say that Beau’s in great health. Here’s the quote:

“And I think he’s one of the best public servants out there, so he’s doing great; he’s doing absolutely great. It was a scare, and you know as his brother, and you know how close I am to my brother, it was very scary. But he’s back to work, and he’s been back to work, and he’s doing great.”

He clearly wants to imply that Biden is in great health. But, what he says is that he’s doing great as a public servant. Nothing more. He leaves it to the reader to infer that it’s about his health. After Clinton, I’m not falling for such tactics.

2. Hither Matt.

OK, now that Matt Denn is in the AG’s race if, indeed, it ends up as a race at all, what does that mean for (a) the lieutenant-governor position and (b) any possible gubernatorial aspirations Matt might have. Delaware Dem has explained that Denn could conceivably resign as Lieutenant Governor before the September primary, which would enable a race for LT. Gov. to be on the ballot this year. Not sure who would want to run to fill out a 2-year term as LT. Gov., but you can bet someone would. As to 2016, while Denn has said that he doesn’t ‘expect’ to run for Governor then, neither has he ruled it out. He didn’t expect to run for AG this year b/c he didn’t expect Biden not to run. I think Matt will accomplish more in two years as AG as Beau has done in six, so he’d be well-positioned to run in 2016, especially if Beau surprises everyone again. Which, IMHO, would be no surprise at all.

3. A Hot Legislative Rematch.

Real pleased to see that Lynne Newlin is gonna challenge Jeffrey Spiegelman in the 11th RD. Both are from Clayton. Although this southern NCC/western Kent County district is pretty darn conservative, (Romney carried the district in 2012, 4822-3989), Newlin easily outperformed the top of the ticket, narrowly losing to Spiegelman by 210 votes. Since that time, even Republicans have collectively been taken aback by Spiegelman’s performance in Dover, especially what practically everyone I’ve talked to characterizes as rudeness. The registration figures nominally favor the D’s, 5820 D’s to 4433 R’s. Newlin is a past president of the Smyrna Board of Education and is an IT coordinator at the University of Delaware. Spiegelman lectures on political science at Wilmington College and (dingdingding!) Del-Tech. Since the D’s already have such a strong advantage in the House, the 11th RD rematch represents perhaps the best possibility for an additional D pickup in the House. This could be a race where Obama not being on the ballot actually benefits the Democrat.

OK, what’d I miss?