Yesterday, I wrote this:
If you’ve been following the ‘most intriguing’ races series, you will note an overriding theme to most of the races–there’s a Delaware Way candidate and there’s someone challenging the Delaware Way.
The Delaware Way in Dover reflects the insider casual corruption of Pete Schwartzkopf, Our PAL Val Longhurst, and their enablers.
That has been my ongoing theme since I started writing on DL back in 2009. Perhaps no three primary contests can do more to finally open up government to all the people than the three remaining in this series.
While I’ll provide all the vital district info, I will make the strongest case I possibly can as to why these races need to go in a particular direction in order to make this possible.
RD 14 has been represented by retired State Police Captain and Troop Commander Pete Schwartzkopf since 2002. It was a new district at the time, having migrated from the Cleland Heights/Elsmere area due to redistricting (Does anybody remember who last represented RD 14 when it was in NCC?). He served as Majority Leader from 2009-2012, then was elected Speaker of the House. During that time, his second-in-command was always Val Longhurst. It is safe to say that they turned the House staff from a happy collegial bunch into a group of good people who were always walking on eggshells. Having worked in the General Assembly from 1983 to 2009, I could never remember leadership governing through fear like that.
Schwartzkopf stepped down as Speaker in 2023, but remained on to finish his term, with Longhurst as Speaker.
The District is solidly Democratic and increasingly more progressive, with a large and active LGBTQ+ community. This coastal Suxco district has 9668 D’s, 6944 R’s, and 6002 I’s. This is a rare district where the I’s skew more D than R. Enough so to have given Russ Huxtable the win over Pete protege/ex-cop Steve Smyk in the 2022 Senate election in SD 6. Here is the map of the district.
This is a three-way race between disgraced former State Auditor Kathleen McGuiness, Marty Rendon, and Claire Snyder-Hall, who is the former Executive Director for Common Cause Delaware.
Were there a Hall Of Fame for Delaware Way miscreants, KMG would be a first-ballot candidate. Not just because she was the rare Delaware official to be tried and convicted. Not just because of her affair with Ernie Lopez that effectively ended his political career among other things (and let us not forget that when Pete was fishing around for a candidate to keep someone more progressive from getting elected, he approached Lopez). But the one that gets me is how someone (I think it was Pete) got the Department Of Elections, then under the not-so-watchful eye of Elaine Manlove, to rule that KMG was eligible to vote and run for office in Delaware even though she had voted in Park City Utah which, according to State law, made her ineligible to run for office back then. A classic example of Delaware Way corruption. Likely due to that same threat/promise conundrum that the current Director of Elections faces with a certain candidate for Governor.
The 14th RD voters already soundly rejected KMG’s first attempt to regain (or, more accurately, retain) political office despite Speaker Pete’s efforts to get her reelected. Which reminds me–remember when Schwartzkopf literally disappeared when even Val Longhurst realized that keeping KMG in office was a bad look? Here is when he finally resurfaced–and wouldn’t take any questions about KMG.
Pete hasn’t given up. He’s dragged his tired carcass and her tired carcass to every RW radio station that needs to fill time. He needs to be there b/c, on her own, she is incapable of making even the weakest case for herself. In so doing, Pete’s told us what he fears most: the election of Claire Snyder-Hall to the General Assembly. He’s blasted her on the radio, in the papers, and in KMG’s campaign pieces. Why? Because she represents an existential threat to the hegemony of the Delaware Way. She has been a passionate advocate for open and transparent government, including an Inspector General, and has pissed off Pete and loads of others along the way. (BTW, here is a piece she wrote back in 2022 that is quite prescient.)
I think there’s another reason. I think she’s leading. Not sure whether Marty or KMG is in second, but first you have to slay the front-runner.
I like Marty Rendon. First time I talked to him I realized that my first campaign was also his first campaign. Sadly, it was on behalf of George McGovern back in 1972. He supports progressive causes. He would be a marked improvement over Schwartzkopf. But everything I hear from down there is that he’s not in a position to win.
So, in a choice between two candidates, there really is no choice if you demand more transparent and responsive government. And an end to the Casual Corruption Of The Delaware Way. Claire Snyder-Hall will bring real change to Dover.