The Top Posts of 2016

DELAWARE LIBERAL STATS

2016 was the third best year ever in terms of traffic and views. Our best year ever was 2012, when we garnered 1,334,026 unique visitors. The second best year was 2010, for obvious reasons, when we got 1,001,373 unique visitors. This year we will end up either just over or just under a million unique visitors (we are idling at 990,000 right now with five days to go (and we average 2,500 a day)).

THE TOP TEN

1. Which candidate was a client of the DC Madam? — by Jason330, March 30, 2016. This post went nationally viral, hence the reason it is our #1. Did we ever find out the answer to this question?

A lawyer who represented the so-called “D.C. madam” says he has phone records that could influence the outcome of the presidential election, and he’s threatening to release one or more names on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court if he’s denied a hearing on his right to distribute them. So let’s assume Montgomery Blair Sibley, the late “DC Madam” Deborah Palfrey’s attorney, does have information that ties one of the current candidates to some of the same prostitutes famously frequented by former Senator and presently disgraced pious blow-hard, David Vitter… which one is it? I have listed the candidates from LEAST likely to MOST likely….

2. Al Mascitti out at WDEL? — by Jason330, March 4, 2016. The answer was yes.

3. Trump’s Campaign Manager, Kellyanne Conway, is not attractive — by Jason330, August 24, 2016. An ill advised attempt at sarcasm at Trump’s expense. This post is indicative of an undercurrent that was present on DL all year long: the latent sexism of even far left liberal white men, even if it is not unconscious and non-malicious.

Kellyanne Conway is not conventionally attractive, and judging from her politics her soul is a putrid mess as well. I only mention this because Trump puts so much stock in looks, mentions how attractive or unattractive people are all the time, and it must be killing him to have to work with Conway. Also, she is in the news today because she says that polls are “skewed” by the fact that people are embarrassed to tell pollsters that they are voting for Trump.

4. In Which We Find That Legislators Can’t Read Contracts — The Sallies Contract vs. Charles Potter — by Cassandra M, November 30, 2016.

So this [Sallies Bayard Stadium funding] deal is still dead and I think that the expectation is that if it gets revived it will be because the new Mayor will work at reviving it. No idea if it is even possible at this point, but that is where we are. In the meantime, we have Rep. Charles Potter putting out a piece of propaganda that specifically misrepresents the terms of this dead deal — I guess so that he can make himself look like a hero or something for standing up to the big bad Sallies and their desire to make Bayard Stadium into a working home field for everybody. He counts, of course, on the fact that no one will spend any time on that document and just get fired up because he says to. I did look at that contract and here is the response to the propaganda with references to the page numbers where I found this info. The items in BOLD are the ones listed on the “Highlights of the major points of the contract with Sallies” that he has posted to Facebook.

5. DL Endorsements for the General Assembly — by El Somnambulo, August 29, 2016. There were three primary races that we took an interest in: the 10th RD, in which we endorsed Sean Matthews, who won, and the 9th SD, where we endorsed Caitlin Olsen, who lost to Jack Walsh (who ended up winning the general), and the 14th RD, where we endorsed Don Peterson in his challenge to Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf. Schwartzkopf of course won, but it does feel good to keep his feet to the progressive fire.

6. Tales of Corruption from Tom Gordon’s NCC — Coverups, Double Dealing and GA Senators — by Cassandra M, April 5, 2016. The highlight of this year for progressives in Delaware was finally getting rid of the perpetually corrupt authoritarian Tom Gordon, and replacing him with a progressive renaissance man.

7. DL Endorsement for U. S. Congress — by El Somnambulo, August 23, 2016. We endorsed Bryan Townsend. He lost, but that just means we get to keep him as state senator. And that is good news for him since he will become a new father next year (Congratulations to Bryan and Lilianna).

8. The City of Wilmington Just Lost $1.5M in WPD Funding and All Mayor Williams Can Manage is the Usual Okie Doke — by Cassandra M, July 4, 2016. Another top level story for Delaware politics this year was the defeat of Mayor Dennis P. Williams in Wilmington. We didn’t get to replace him with the candidate we wanted (Eugene Young), but there is some hope in the city again.

9. Cassandra & El Somnambulo Predict ‘Em (Almost) All For You — September 8, 2016. We try in vain to predict the primary. We got the Insurance Commissioner race wrong (we had hoped to depose KWS before, and were weary to predicting her demise again), the Congressional race wrong (Lisa Blunt Rochester won instead of Townsend). We also jokingly predicted that Lacey Lafferty would be Bonini in a replay of 2010’s GOP Senatorial primary.

10. BREAKING: Bryon Short Drops Out — by Delaware Dem, April 4, 2016. Remember when he was the favorite in the Congressional primary? Seems like a long time ago. The small donor base went to Townsend. Barney and LBR divided the other donors, leaving Short well, short.

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