Day: May 13, 2015

GOP Presidential hopefuls were asked who they thought where the greatest living President was. They all answered Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan died in June of 2004, eleven years ago. He is no longer living. Or so we thought. We have been joking about it for years, but maybe they really did reanimate the dead corpse of Ronald Reagan. The reality is they all have to say Reagan because the living Presidents currently stand at Carter, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama. They can't say Carter, Clinton and Obama. And if they say either Bush, it will look like a plug of Jebbie Bush, or self serving if you are Jebbie Bush.

During the last session of the General Assembly, the Senate passed the repeal of the Death Penalty 11-10, only to have House Judiciary Committee Chair Rebecca Walker bottle up the legislation in her committee, refusing to even consider the legislation table the legislation in committee. This year, repeal again passed the Senate in a close bipartisan vote, 11-9. But this time, at least the bill will get a public hearing may get a vote a vote. [DD: It seems my memory is faulty. Drew Volturo contacted me and said that the Repeal Bill did get a public hearing last session but it was tabled in committee due to lack of votes to release it.] The bill's House sponsor, Rep. Sean Lynn (D-Dover), is not optimistic about the bill's chances in committee, but he has a Plan B ready.

Claire Snyder-Hall would lose a Democratic primary to Tom Carper, but that's not the point. The Democratic Party needs the moral leadership of people like Snyder-Hall. I only hope that she isn't already mobbed-up in the corporatist shit hole so much that she'd regard a primary challenge to Tom Carper as an affront to propriety. Her work with Common Cause gives me hope to think that she is not. But if not to win, why run? That's a legitimate questions, Snyder-Hall knows as well as anybody that running is hard. But I think a primary challenge from the left could help bring the discussion of income inequality back home to Delaware. It could make Carper account for his Republican voting record, and put issues from the environment to women's health in play. Tom Carper's utter contempt for the party of Truman, Kennedy and FDR is well known, and on constant display. If he is not primaried, it could very well reveal our contempt for democracy.

Bernie August would lose a Democratic primary to Tom Carper, but that's not the point. The Democratic Party needs the moral leadership of the Green Party people who have left the Party in disgust. Do I blame them for leaving? Hell no! The Democratic Party, particularly the Delaware Democratic Party is a festering shit hole of corporatist functionaires. And yet the Democratic Party is the only viable counterweight to its own wrongheadedness. If not to win, why run? That's a legitimate questions, but I think a primary challenge from the left could help bring the discussion of income inequality back home to Delaware. It could make Carper account for his Republican voting record, and put issues from the environment to women's health in play. Tom Carper's utter contempt for the party of Truman, Kennedy and FDR is well known, and on constant display. If he is not primaried, it could very well reveal our contempt for democracy.