Tuesday Open Thread [10.13.15]

Tuesday Open Thread [10.13.15]

7 Comments
Daniel Drezner on why Joe Biden isn't running: “The only political reason for a Biden candidacy was an imploding Hillary Clinton, and she’s not imploding." Tonight is DEBATE NIGHT! Finally, after enduring two evil and lengthy GOP debates where we discovered that how exactly the Republicans intend to wreak their terrible will on the nation, we get the adults. The reasonable and rational party. The party committed to social progress, equality, opportunity and the Constitution. The party that solves conflicts with diplomacy rather than immature saber rattling. The party that actually paid attention during science and social studies class. The party that believes that climate change is a problem created by man and can be alleviated by man. The party that is not racist, or sexist, or bigoted. The party that stands for the 99%. The Democratic Party. Meanwhile, Pew Research says Democrats have become more liberal: “The share of Democrats who describe their political views as liberal has increased over the past 15 years. In surveys conducted this year, 41% of Democrats describe themselves as liberal, 35% say they are moderates and 21% say they’re conservative. In 2000, 43% were moderate, 27% liberal and 24% conservative.” You know who gets credit for all this? Progressives and the Netroots. People like Markos Moulitsas and Jason Scott in the Howard Dean days who said "Damn straight I am a liberal."
Sneaky Pete Slips Starkey’s Insider Raise Q’s

Sneaky Pete Slips Starkey’s Insider Raise Q’s

33 Comments
The NJ names names and turns up the heat on Sneaky Pete.
Amid budget grief, big raises for Dover political aides Delaware lawmakers quietly awarded their top political aides in Legislative Hall thousands of dollars in raises earlier this year, even as they reduced or eliminated general pay increases for rank-and-file state employees, according to a review of payroll data by The News Journal.
House Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf, a Rehoboth Democrat who approved the raises, ducked questions from The News Journal, ignoring repeated requests for comment. "Pete is not available to comment about this," said Drew Volturo, a House Democratic spokesman.
Drew Volturo has been on the other side of this, so I'm not sure why he is going with this stonewalling approach. Maybe the Dem "leadership" has some broadside attack on teachers in he works that they plan to use to push this off the front page? It wouldn't surprise me.

Tuesday Daily Delawhere [10.13.15]

The advantage of being a small state is that most residents have easy and regular access to their representatives and public officials at events across the state, and many can speak of stories where they have run into various officials, like the Governor or the Vice President, in their local markets and movie theaters. The disadvantage of being a small state is that we do not really have our own state wide television station or news paper, and those media outlets that we do have, do not really put a premium on getting to know our candidates or public officials. So I am going to use this Daily Delawhere space on occasion to highlight pictures of candidates and office holders either campaigning or performing their responsibilities. These photos can be provided by the campaigns themselves through social media, like Facebook or Instagram, or provided by others. In fact, I will put a premium on using photos provided through social media if only to encourage its use by our politicians. Some have become really really good at it. Others, not so much. First up today, is Brad Eaby, candidate for Lt. Governor. Here he is at the Apple Scrapple Festival recently. Photo from the Eaby campaign's Instagram account. The posting of this picture does not constitute an endorsement of the Eaby campaign.