Flowers Back In
What else could this be about?
Treasurer Flowers will issue a statement on primary election tomorrow afternoon. #netde #Delaware #staytuned @Deldems
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So he *is* trying to be Marion Barry!
I think we have seen it all. He kept talking in his press conference about the lies being told on him. Here are some lies A. I’m no longer seeking re-election (maybe) B. I will not be making any public announcements for a very long time. The press conference was a farce if he stays in the race. Talk about wasting everyone’s time.
What else it could be about: The Dover Police investigation. There’s a reason he post-dated his withdrawal paperwork, and it was based on the DPD’s date for winding up its investigation. Or so I hear.
After seeing quite a number of Dems this past weekend, I doubt that there is any support for Flowers to get back in. Literally, everyone has moved on. The only support that he might have left is the protest vote.
http://delawareway.blogspot.com/2014/08/i-will-be-making-protest-vote-for-chip.html
The good news is that if he stayed in, it would swell the polls and help make sure that people get out and support Brenda Mayrack (while voting for Sean Barney). It would also remove any doubt as to whether or not there are two fundraising cycles for Barney.
Cass.. Marion Barry won as I recall. He also had much better PR.
Hopefully he won’t have a press conference and just release a written statement. I think he will be cleared of any harassment charges (it looks like they harassed each other mutually) , but does he think that was the only reason some were hesitant to vote for him? He can’t be that delusional, right?
Marion Barry won as I recall. He also had much better PR.
And he’s still a nationwide laughingstock.
From 2012: Marion Barry (D), the former District of Columbia mayor and current Ward 8 councilmember, is the highest-rated elected local official in the nation’s capital. That’s according to a recent Washington Post poll of 1,002 D.C. adults taken July 15-17.
So it’s not the entire nation. Just the states with voting members of the House.
Here’s an interesting question: Has anyone seen a Sean Barney campaign sign anywhere?
@geezer: no.
So it’s not the entire nation. Just the states with voting members of the House.
I’m not even thinking about the political class. Whenever I hear Barry’s name these days, it is as the butt of some comedian’s joke. Which is still how most Americans hear his name, I’m guessing.
Has anyone seen a Sean Barney campaign sign anywhere?
Who?
If there’s not a primary, Barney shouldn’t get two fundraising cycles. You can’t have it both ways.
Pluribusunum,
That makes no sense he was in a primary for months, you can’t act like he could see the future and not spend money on a primary that seemed very real at the time Barney made the expenditures.
So… pluribusunum is bitter that his candidate dropped out, and is on the “fuck my party” bandwagon. Got it. Go slam the door to your room and crank up some Metallica, it’ll sooth your whiney teenage soul.
Like Hmmm said, he was in a primary (and still is until August 28th, lest you forget), raising money on the premise of beating someone in a primary, and spending money to that end as well. “Can’t have it both ways”, what planet are you living on? You can if “both ways” are separated by time, because, you know, circumstances change and all.
Maybe he is going to announce that he is dropping out of the race?
Per Celia:
Flowers’ withdrawal is not effective until Aug. 28 at 4 p.m., according to election officials…
Manlove pressed Flowers for a reason for the postponement, and she said he told her he was working to restore his reputation before he formally withdrew…
“I don’t know how we’re possibly going to handle all the machines. I explained to him [Flowers] the impact it would have on the voters, the confusion for the voters, to no avail,” Manlove said.
Cass… The only Politician that should care how the rest of the nation views him/her is the President. Highly doubt that DC voters care what the rest of the nation thinks of their Mayor For Life. All politics are local. So as long as you’re not a laughing stock with the people who can actually vote for you, you’re still relevant. However, the Chipster has no base of support and is very much a laughing stock within his electorate.
Geezer: Saw one by a highway ramp in Milford.
Flowers is through, not because of any credit card or CMPB issues, but because he cracked and blubbered on camera. And his text transcripts reveal him to be an asshole in his personal life – but not illegally so. I imagine many well-known politicians are similar assholes whose transcripts just haven’t been published yet.
In the time he has left, whatever grief Flowers is able to deliver to the DelDem establishment, they certainly have it coming. It would serve them right if their ‘antics delivered the Treasurer’s office to Republicans.
So what was passed on to me from a normally reliable source is that Chip is trying to hold the Dems hostage. He wants his filing fee back and some kind of exoneration letter and some other bullshit. The filing fee seems to be the thing. Anyone else hear this?
Still, it is highly amusing that Chip’s defenders STILL can’t settle on the reason why he’s through. He is through because he was a bad manager, because his ego wouldn’t let him get out of the way of fixing his own mistakes, and because he lied about the misuse of taxpayer funds. He was free to be an egotistic asshole, but it is my experience that these folks sink themselves sooner or later.
For the record, I am not so much a Chip defender as I am a critic of his attackers. From the beginning when the governor’s office released internal emails to the News Journal, to the time when Dave Marvin wrote of Flowers needing to heed his “overseers,” the late-in-the-game manipulation of Erika Benner, the GA rejection of Flowers’s good government reforms, and putting the governor’s staffer up for a primary – the clowns just kept piling out of the state car, thinking we couldn’t see what they were up to.
And in order to be a critic of Chip’s critics, you have to hide behind a wall of conspiracy theory.
Interesting that while Auditor and Treasurer are colloquially described as billboard offices, the only billboards I’ve yet seen are for the dying mallards, Flowers and Matlusky.
He wants his filing fee back? Give it to him as a wedding present and retirement gift. After he officially withdraws.
An ‘exoneration’ letter? Wasn’t that what the Auditor’s whitewash was designed to be?
the only billboards I’ve yet seen are for the dying mallards, Flowers and Matlusky.
I saw a Billboard for Smink on 202. It looked more like one of those cheesy revival meeting billboards — you know the one where there is an overly styled picture of the preacher and cheesy messaging to go with it. Dog whistle stuff, but that picture is unfortunate.
Here’s my for-real prediction:
Flowers states that, since his withdrawal announcement, he’s been inundated with pleas that he stay in the race and fight ‘The Man’. Accordingly, while he won’t actively campaign, he’s gonna leave his name on the ballot to ‘give voice to those plaintive cries for help that go unanswered by the Delaware Way cabal’. And, should he win, he would have no choice but to honor the will of the people. At tremendous personal and professional sacrifice to Himself, Chip Flowers.
I told’ja it was gonna be just like Tom and Huck crying at their own ‘funeral’.
That sounds about right.
Yeah, I know its a little more work for Elaine Manlove but I say no matter what the circumstances, there’s nothing wrong with letting the voters decide.
“Whenever I hear Barry’s name these days, it is as the butt of some comedian’s joke. Which is still how most Americans hear his name, I’m guessing.”
Granted. But he has the approval of the people who know him best. Who had the wisdom to make him a councilman instead of mayor.
@Puck: If there are party forces out for Chip, they aren’t centered in Markell’s office. Markell has not swept out the people running the Democratic Party in Delaware, as politicians who defeat party-backed candidates usually do. If there’s animus towards Flowers, look for it among the much-more-likely suspects. Ask yourself which Delaware politicians are tied most strongly to banks, which is the area in which the treasurer works. If you want to find those with motive to bedevil him, look there.
Or, y’know, you could just look to people who think the man is a complete buffoon, which would be pretty much everyone who’s had a conversation with him.
I get that he may want to hold the Dems hostage, let’s say that there was a Markell push, hypothetically, how does this help his business with current or potential clients? He announced in a big emotional press conference he was moving on, with fiancée and all. Texts were released and the big pic was published, the one he said didn’t exist. July 13th was written in stone of when to get the filing fee back, over the last 4 plus years it was reported he spent over $600,000 on his campaign, a filing fee cost is chump change, doesn’t make sense.
Ask yourself which Delaware politicians are tied most strongly to banks, which is the area in which the treasurer works.
And even this doesn’t make much sense. The banks who were managing the money were lifetime members of the usual suspects before Chip became Treasurer and after the so-called competition for new blood, we ended up with more of the same plus one or two new faces from the usual suspects crowd. It wasn’t as though the big banks weren’t going to get their bite at this apple — the only thing being argued over was WHO got to pick those banks.
This guy is exhausting. Talk about an egomaniac- is there anyone out there that is still supporting this guy? If so, I question their judgment and credibility.
a filing fee cost is chump change, doesn’t make sense.
The filing fee is more than Benner’s improper credit card charges.
people who think the man is a complete buffoon, which would be pretty much everyone who’s had a conversation with him.
Except Sean Barney.
Puck, how much is the filing fee? I have no idea. My point is that Flowers spent so much of his own money, it didn’t make sense he needed this amount to be the sticking point to his continuation.
It also didn’t make sense that he withdrew for a few mishandled credit card charges. I don’t even know if he is making an issue of the filing fee or not – that is just a blog rumor at this point. He is not entitled to have the filing fee returned, but he IS entitled to remain in the primary. Les jeux sont faits.
Total bullshit about him wanting the filing fee back, Cassandra. It’s been “strongly” rumored, rather, that it was offered to him “with a bonus” early last week if he would just get off the ballot already.
Geezer is giving the most useful hints here on this thread.
If there are any readers that want a picture of this situation less tainted by News Journal stories or Cassandra’s insider sources, bend his ear.
It’s been “strongly” rumored, rather, that it was offered to him “with a bonus” early last week if he would just get off the ballot already.
Hoo boy, now that would be a story about misuse of state funds.
You desperados need to recall that filing fees are NOT state funds. Seriously, your flop sweat is showing.
And “strongly” rumored? As in you made that up right now?
My guess is he withdrew because he thought that Dover police investigation was going to turn up something. He said he was withdrawing with the hopes it would all just go away. It’s not going away, so now he’s saying “fuck it, I’ll make everyone suffer through my downfall”.
Citizen 36 is right. This guy exhausts me.
This should be his theme song, or mine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW9-FOLG-iA
AQS, I think the investigation will show they are equally bonkers, I don’t think he will be charged. As for others saying it is the bank pushers, does it sound even coherent they made him go to a game on the taxpayers dime? Then plotted Erika to take a picture of Flowers ( who posed for it) to wait until the Primary and lose her job? Sounds kind of Science Fiction.
On another note, I think Puck was stating the bonus and not the filing fee would be a misappropriation of taxpayers money. I don’t want to assume, but that is what I took from the comment. I don’t think there are any bonuses that could be gained.
“…even this doesn’t make much sense. The banks who were managing the money were lifetime members of the usual suspects before Chip became Treasurer…”
I never said it made much sense, just that it’s a richer vein for the ore that can be refined into a proper conspiracy theory. They were also the usual suspects before Markell became governor, and Carper, not Markell, has gone all-out for Barney. That should be enough for a conspiracy theorist.
Anyone else get the feeling that Flowers thrives on chaos. This has been the description of his entire Delaware political career.
My guess is that Flowers wants to make his withdrawal as painful as possible and wants to stay on the ballot as a big F U. If he can somehow win, all the better.
A grand unified conspiracy theory that puts Carper at the center of a plot to replace Flowers with Barney to benefit banks? Great! Where do I sign?
Only… that would suggest Flowers is (was?) somehow an obstacle to Carper’s designs to further enrich himself at the expense of credit card holders. I don’t see it.
Filing fees are paid to the Political Parties which is a form of extortion not to the Department of Elections. The fee is usually number of years of term x salary x 1%.
Agreed on the banks.
Bad news for Valenzuela: Candidates endorsed by Sarah Palin have been quite unsuccessful this cycle. Only four of her 15 Congressional candidates won their primaries, among other setbacks.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/08/20/237095/palin-goes-0-for-2-in-alaska-as.html
Harry Shearer: “She may be on that bridge after all.”
http://harryshearer.com/le-shows/august-24-2014/ [minute 22]