Yes, Val. It Was Personal.
Been waiting for this day since 2008. The week between Christmas and New Years. The day you stormed into my office, tore down my posters from the wall, told me I was fired and had twenty minutes to vacate the premises, and thrust a letter in front of me saying I had resigned and told me to sign it only to have Rich Puffer (one of the REAL good guys) tell me not to sign it b/c I wouldn’t be eligible for unemployment benefits if I did. I will never forget the glee you took in proving what a powerful person you were. I remember our brief conversation:
Me: I thought I was doing a good job.
You: This will be a learning experience for you.
I had to drive to New Jersey to pick up my kids and their friends at a Young Friends Quaker Meeting Retreat. Couldn’t let the fact that I no longer had a job effect me. Kept it to myself and got through it. Got home and pretty much broke down. What followed were the worst six months or so of my life. Oh, did I mention that you neglected to do your job and didn’t tell me that I was entitled to my legislative pension and here’s who I should see? I have now.
Blogging for Delaware Liberal and, more importantly, meeting a group of people there who were supportive really helped me. Not to mention, I had, and have, the best wife in the world, and she stuck by me. It wasn’t all bad–got to do a radio show with Al Mascitti, got the best imaginable post-career gig at Trader Joe’s. My TJ’s peeps were and are the best. Do you know who they remind me of, Val? The people who were my friends and fellow staff down in Dover. The likes of whom you subsequently fired many times over. Because you could. Great people. You didn’t care.
Val, you might be interested to know that, all of your various and sundry misdeeds over the years? I went back and turned them into something like a 25-page oppo research document for the campaign that ultimately did you in. It was the kind of campaign you could never run–because it consisted of a core of grassroots volunteers, all with their own reasons, dedicated to electing Kamela Smith. You know, Val–Kamala/Kamela. Betcha you’ve heard that more times than you care to recount.
The biggest difference between you and Kam? Kam is an empath, she is genuinely concerned about people, and has spent her career helping them to get the mental health services they deserve. As opposed to your repackaging yourself as the Champion Of Mental Health Reform. A bad joke, especially to all of those people who succeeded me on your Firing Line. Turns out I was just the canary in the coalmine, many more would follow.
On Day One, Kam will begin to do more for those who need those services than your grandstanding ever did. She cares about people who need help, and knows how to help them. You never cared about anyone’s mental health because the only person you ever cared about was you.
I’m sure you feel sad about yesterday’s loss. Allow me to try to place it in context:
This will be a learning experience for you.
Been saving up this song just in case this day ever came:
“I want her to know it was me.”
Best line ever written! It was you El Som…you, and all followers, deserve this great day.
We all now have 2 years to do the same to Val’s worthless girlfriend, No Longer Poore. I think the line to help you amass the Ops Research on Poore is starting….right…..about…..now! Oh yes, i see them coming….
Y’know, all I did on Val was to put her name in our search engine and to then go through all the articles from the beginning.
There was so much stuff that I had forgotten. Took me all day until late at night to do the project. Worth every second.
Excellent post!
The way you write makes me think revenge is a dish served not cold, but scaldingly hot 😀
I love this post so much.
It needs a picture of someone standing on a cliff at sunrise, with the wind in their hair and hands on their hips (or possibly outstretched), looking triumphant.
Congratulations and thank you.
I like to imagine Pete sitting at home in Sussex County absolutely seething.
No Kathy. No Val. His legacy in ruins.
Yeah. Fuck that guy.
Where’s Betsy’s resignation?
Resignation would deprive us of the pleasure of kicking her and her cronies’ asses to the curb in the party elections next year.
add Jane Hovington to the “worthless apparatchiks” list, along with Loretta Benson and Maynard Gregory, both RD36. Miserable, dull, dense, lawless, dumb.
Better yet. Where is Anthony Albence’s resignation. If I were him I’d be running for the hills.
That’s one way to make sure that he doesn’t ever release the damaging info he has on BHL’s finances.
Also congrats to the WFP and Karl Stomberg on all of their big wins. More and better Democrats.
I don’t think anybody, including me, has any idea how the sweeping away of Dover’s worst will impact the General Assembly.
If Matt is really receptive to a serious agenda of ending Delaware Way secrecy and to making government more open and transparent, we really might have something…
We don’t always agree on policy…but god damn I am happy to see her go. It is stories like yours that I am sure will pop up numerous times now.
I have witnessed that mean girl squad in a few private meetings when I was working for a former st. senator on her campaigns, and I am full of glee.
this is a huge step forward for delaware & I do hope more of our voices can will be heard, regardless of our views, in Dover.
Ding, freaking, dong, The Pete/Val era is dead.
You know where our views coincide?: Open and transparent government.
So now that I’ve had the opportunity to digest the primary results, my nagging thought is, “I wish Paul Baumbach didn’t retire.”
I was just thinking the same thing.
True. But I think he paved the way for the best possible successor:
https://www.marafordelaware.com/
Your comments resonate with SO many people who have countless additiinal stories of their own to tell of being bullied and antagonized by her. So sad she felt the need to treat people like that while on her Peter Principle Power Trip. But, what goes around comes around. SO many people jumping for joy last night for Kam’s win.
I heard that there was lots of celebration at various election parties last night.
I wonder if she might learn now how many people were just sucking up to her because they had to in order to get their agendas through, versus those who were truly her friends. The latter list is probably much much shorter than the first list.
Probably because they are no longer being held hostage by that crazy horrible mean nasty person
I wonder how those people that got forced to continue to support Bethany because of Val’s hollow threats, feel now?
They got anchored to the worst campaign in modern Delaware political history and their little paper tiger got thrown into the fire pit where she belongs.
I feel like I should have seen more resignations today. But, as we were told yesterday, nobody is gonna “drum these people out of politics” – obviously because they’re so good at it. Quaking in our boots about the raw power of Betsy maron and her apparatchiks.
“The delusion is strong….”
So many people had the opportunity to do the right but difficult thing and nearly everyone took the easy way out. Tis the Delaware Way. Or at least it used to be.
I meant Val as the horrible nasty person holding people hostage. But that also applies to BHL
I think Bethany is instinctively a people-pleaser.
Val, um, is not.
I can’t wait to watch her crawl back into legislative hall begging for money for her workplace that she never shows up to. She should be fired from that too but like I said I think she has a circle corrupt goons like Navarro and his buddies who will close ranks around her. He’s gotta go next.
Please forgive me for bringing up this memory. I am relatively new to the state.
When Val was elected in 2004, how was she in a position to remove you in 2008? Was she given this position to remove anyone?
Again, thank you for all your work.
She and Pete got leadership slots after the 2008 election. (Or was it 2006? Time becomes a blur after awhile…)
I had spent most of my career working in the State Senate, a lot of it as one of two Chief Administrative Assistants to the Senate Democratic Caucus. Early in my career, I had worked two years in the House, and then served as the Analyst for the Joint Sunset Committee. I moved into the Senate role in, I think, 1986, where I served until 2004. So, I had served in the General Assembly from 1983 to 2004.
I ran for office in 2004, and lost. Because I sucked as a candidate.
Got a staff job with the House after 2006, so I only worked those last two years there. I don’t think anybody anticipated the change in how Pete and Val would treat staff. Went from a wonderful collegial atmosphere to don’t look at those assholes cross-eyed.
They were soon to find out.
El Som, admire your persistence in righting this wrong. The House Democratic Caucus, Legislative Hall, and Delaware will all be better off without Val’s consistent abuse of people and power over the course of two decades.
I want to make this clear–I was but one person in this campaign.
Kam and her team ran a picture-perfect grassroots campaign, and it reflected Kam’s inclusive nature.
People who knew Kam from Philadelphia came down to help. People from Kam’s church came to help. Why? Because they like her and wanted to help.
A far cry from House staff being shanghaied into helping. Grudgingly.
And, yes, the mighty WFP team. You’ll see many of their names in our annual MVP awards.
It is fair to say, though, that there were other people like me who were also motivated to either volunteer and/or contribute because of Val. The MoMo spotted it in the Eight-Day reports–multiple $99 contributions to Kam, almost all certainly from people who wanted Val out, but were afraid to have their names on the donors’ list.
In a grassroots campaign, people with different motivations come together to great a whole greater than the sum of its parts. That’s what happened here.
It was beautiful.