DL Open Thread Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024
Whether you’re talking about the presidential debate or the Delaware primaries, things went about as well as could be expected yesterday. The News Journal, as if to remind us it could have gone even better, headlined John Carney’s win in Wilmington, which has to represent the biggest self-demotion in Delaware political history. Some of you long-timers can correct me if I’m wrong.
Adding insult to Trump’s injury, Taylor Swift endorsed Harris right after the debate.
Nationally, the story out of Delaware is Sarah McBride’s overwhelming win, setting her up to become the first transgender member of Congress.
Just to put a final touch on the day, Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, the asswipe who shouted “You lie!” at Barack Obama during his first State of the Union speech, was hospitalized after collapsing at an event in Washington. Karma’s a bitch.
The floor’s yours. Let the crowing begin.
Does anyone actually know how Monique Johns will be as county council president? The silver lining for me is she lives south of the canal, so maybe she’ll provide us with more representation.
It’s just an at-large council seat, so it mostly doesn’t matter. Janet Kilpatrick will continue to run the county council.
Mmmm…. not so fast. Monique + Caneco adds two fresh votes to the Council. Might be hugely impactful and enough to swing things toward a different future. Caneco joins Durham and Carter in making a point not to take developer contributions.
The biggest difference I see is that you won’t have Karen Hartley Nagle around to fuck things up with her cluelessness. But county council has very limited power; they can’t vote down any development that’s properly zoned, and they can’t go against their planning department’s recommendations without ending up in court, so I’m not sure what you mean by a different future.
Johns’ family finance scandal within 5 months, I’m sure of it.
I don’t think the debate changed any minds. Or maybe I just don’t know any authentic undecided voters.
The ABC moderators did pretty well with pushing back on a few of Trump’s lies. David Muir asked Trump two very sharp and pertinent questions – “Why did you kill the border bill?? and “Is there anything you regret about Jan. 6?” – but then let him off the hook when he didn’t answer.
I wish Harris had done a better job setting up her claim of a “Trump Sales Tax” by explaining how tariffs result in increased prices and create new inflation. I think most low-information voters were baffled by the “Trump Sales Tax.” Harris is boxed in on attacking tariffs though. because Biden himself continued and expanded the Trump tariffs, which Trump gleefully pointed out.
FWIW, 37% polled afterwards said Trump won. That’s your core of unpersuadables.
I am very happy to get your best crow recipes today. My take on BHL was based on an outdated sense to the power of the Delaware way in elections. Congratulations to team Meyer. Now, let’s beat the fuck out of Ramone.
Re: Monique Johns – I guess this proves that there is a little silver lining to a being a three time loser in state rep races in a large field. Other than a dim sense of name recognition voters, I can’t imagine what people were voting for with that pick.
I notice that BHL carried Kent County, the Delaware Way’s ground zero.
You can tell Harris won the debate as all the idiocracy on line is claiming “ABC gave her the questions ahead of time.”
my question is for debates – can the debators have paper and pens/sharpies? because everytime trump told some ridiculous story I’d hold up a card that said “?!?!?!?!” or “Really?!?!?!” or one that said “follow up????”
Today is the start of the Meyer transition. He needs to use every minute of every day to plan for that. Have Cabinet members and his office staff announced the day after the election. Have executive orders and regulations and legislation drafted and ready to go on Inauguration Day. Have genuine reforms to kickstart his administration.
Speaking of the inauguration – my dream has been of a Governor who will hold a short ceremony in the poorest and most economically depressed part of Delaware, speak for 5 minutes, and then unleash a corps of social workers and medical teams and hand out trash bags for a massive community service and aid project. (Please steal that idea, Erik and Brian!)
You have 131 days, Matt. Make us proud.
Word on the street is that Carney has abandoned his responsibility to submit a proposed FY 26 budget.
Don’t think any other governor has done that while transitioning out…
Time to start prepping to run the city of Wilmington.
Maybe Mayor Mike has a spare desk in his office that John can use for the next four months while learning the job.
That way John can resign as governor and let BHL enjoy her dream job for four months.
Please please please fire the Secretary of finance…
and, in another note, Shupe/Smith race is down to 11 votes, recount asked for by Smith.
My only regret about the McBride win is that we now have a really short campaign and therefor less time for MAGA idiots from across the country to set huge bails of money on fire in support of …*checks notes* …John J. Whalen The Third.
Matt Meyer and Sarah McBride got shout-outs from Atrios.
https://www.eschatonblog.com/2024/09/congrats-matt-meyer-presumptive-next.html
Carney will have to resign to be sworn in as Mayor in early Jan. So there’s likely to be a short period of January that BHL is Governor, right?
Good question for the lawyers. As noted, resignation would give BHL her dream job for at least a couple of weeks. The real question (hey, maybe a DL poll question) is this: Who would you rather see looking down at their shoes as Matt Meyer takes the oath of office: Carney or BHL?
BHL hands down, She will be the Dave Buckson and Dale Wolfe of her time 😎
Just a little ray of sunshine:)
NEW: A General Services Administration spox tells NPR that as of 11 a.m. ET today there have been 306,422 visitors to http://vote.gov referred from Taylor Swifts’s URL she shared on Instagram last night