Presenting: The LEAST Intriguing Delaware Primaries Of 2024
No, I’m not gonna list stuff like row office primaries. Except when I’m snarking them. In some cases, these are primaries that could have been important had at least one of the candidates proven worthy. In other cases, it’s because only one side is running a campaign. And in some, hey, it’s my list, I make the rules:
“Dr.” Joe Armonio vs. Donyale Hall vs. John Whalen III for the R nomination to lose to Sarah McBride in Delaware’s Congressional race. This serves as a proxy for other races, including the Rethug primary race for Governor, where candidates are running for the right to be the Last Sacrificial Lamb standing. If I still smoked reefer, I might opt to check out a ‘debate’ between the three of them though…
Incumbent D Trinidad Navarro vs. Kayode Abegunde For Insurance Commissioner. This serves as a proxy for other races where the challenger is a chronic name on the ballot. Navarro should have a serious challenger. He didn’t get one.
State Rep. Stephanie Bolden vs. James Taylor In RD 2 Democratic Primary. Why retire when you are now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Buccini/Pollin and your opponent is a refugee from an Anger Management program? A candidate recruitment failure.
Dennis E. Williams vs. Melanie Ross Levin vs. Stephen Jankovic In RD 10 Democratic Primary. Williams reportedly got the RD committee endorsement because, wait for it, he promised to oppose Our PAL Val Longhurst for Speaker. Of course, Williams had promised to back a more progressive team for Speaker back in 2008, lied about it, flipped his support to the Kop Kabal team, and then claimed he had never promised his vote. For that, his dismal record while in office, and a whole lot of other reasons, he is unfit to serve. Melanie Ross Levin has Val’s imprimatur. And Jankovic is a chiropractor with no involvement in public affairs that I can find. Oh, just one more thing. At the risk of pissing off some of my more progressive readers, the Delaware General Assembly can’t do a fucking thing about the Israeli war in Gaza. So, to base an endorsement on one’s position on that is a fool’s errand, IMO. If I lived in that district, I’d probably trade my vote for a nice adjustment on my back. Paging Dr. Jankovic…I can be bought, and you can probably still bill Medicare for it.
Carlucci Coelho vs. Danny Rappa in RD 13 Rethuglican Primary. Two highly-undesirable candidates. One, Coelho, who is against ‘everything good’. The other, Rappa, who is the latest would-be political influencer from the family who ‘funded’ Gene Reed back when the NCC Democratic Party was run pretty much by trade union guys. Back then, most campaign fundraising was delivered in the form of shoe boxes full of money. From his campaign website, cut-and-pasted:
Together, let’s Drive Delware Forward for all Delawareans.
Marcus Henry vs. Karen Hartley-Nagle For NCC Executive. Hey, I support Marcus, have his sign on my lawn, our committee endorsed him. I’ve put this race here because KHN has apparently chosen not to run a campaign. Turns out that ours wasn’t the only committee she stiffed when it came to appealing for our support. I don’t know who she will blame and/or sue when the results come in. If past behavior is a predictor, she will likely do both. But all the money that Jimmy Maravelias might waste on this race will accomplish nothing. Hope he wastes a lot.
There ya go. The decks are now cleared for the MOST Intriguing Primaries. Coming, um, whenever I get around to writing about them.
RD10 seems like a real catastrophe, but it’s not like it could end up much worse than Matthews.
The irony was that Matthews was seen as the progressive alternative to Williams. And he started out that way. But something happened to him in the last two or three terms–I don’t know whether the same worm in RFK Jr’s brain invaded his, but he’s taken to legislating from his Own Private Idaho.
One of the more puzzling political transformations in recent years.
KHN campaign isn’t dead but it’s on life support. Looks like they are banking at a big sign push and name recognition for low information voters. Outside the thug that runs building trades she seems to have limited support outside a few neighborly endorsements here and there. Also down in the money race in a county race matters.
Credit to Marcus, he hasn’t even brought up her harassment allegations and he’s still ahead.
What is up with the language Building trades Facebook feed? Seems like something John Gotti would have written. This is from the official Facebook account, describing Marcus Hency, David Carter and Kevin Canesco…… ”
“Catching the shrapnel?” Why aren’t candidates condeming this instead of sucking up to them for endorsements?
“The anti union leader Carter is hosting a meet n greet for 2 of his anti union cronies. Time to expose people for who they are. Today we take off the gloves and handle our business. Anyone palling up to anti Union politicians will catch the shrapnel.”
The lack of consequences for Trump has emboldened the shitty people of the world to act out.
I think these people forget that they aren’t Trump and can’t get away with it.
I’m sad that these people don’t feel any shame because it’s deeply embarrassing and cringe to observe. But I’m not worried about them winning. It’s the last gasp of whatever politics they think existed here before. Namely white, conservative, democrats who will let the “good ol boys” do what they want. That’s the only reason they like Bethany. She’s just the eternal cheerleader for the boys team and she’s happy to play that part if she gets to feel important.
There is no place for a group threatening that their opponents will “catch the shrapnel” in these times.
Totally unacceptable. It should be condemned by those seeking their endorsement.
Feel free to send some donations to Kevin to combat this hateful nonsense. https://www.canecoforncc.com/donate
It’s hilarious to me that she should be depending on a late sign push.
8 years ago, she was running for CC Prez and there was a big detailed plan for how to distribute all of the signs for Dems to get them to polling places. The candidates had to get their signs in something like a week before election day. They then get sorted into all of the RDs and polling places, labelled, etc. Then on the Saturday-Monday days RDs have to come pick up all of their signs to put them out on election day.
I was the LAST RD in New Castle County to pick mine up at around 5PM on the evening before election day. As I was leaving, KHN pulled up next to me with a car full of signs (literally all of the space was occupied in this car). She somehow didn’t know that she was almost a week late and that the polls opened in 14 hours.
Apparently she and her son drove all over the county putting up signs through the night because she didn’t have her $%1# together.
So color me skeptical about her signs making any difference at all.
Steve, I know you hate Dennis and it’s for shit that happened before I was even old enough to vote so I won’t argue or say your hatred is invalid. And you’re correct that nothing can be done at the state level about Gaza.
However, if you think that Arab-Delawareans in RD-10 don’t deserve better than someone who sits on the board of an organization that invites an IDF Colonel who calls Arab citizens of Israel “traitors from within” to speak to them, and has not protested this move, then I think you need to reexamine your priorities. This isn’t about Melanie having a bad take on Israel-Palestine, this is about fundamental complicity with vile racism that gets Palestinians shot, including one who was an attendee at the protest held right here in Delaware outside of Biden’s house.
Would you be singing the same tune if Melanie was on the board of an organization that invited Nick Fuentes or a neo-Nazi to speak? Or does only anti-Arab racism get a pass as a non-issue? You’ve been a great advocate for Palestine, man, you’ve been one of the best Jewish Boomers in Delaware on this issue. I know that you’re better than this.
Read it again. He didn’t endorse her.
Not saying he did, but his gratuitous comment of stating the obvious that the General Assembly doesn’t handle foreign policy just dismisses Melanie’s right-wing Zionism as something that can be dismissed as a bad foreign policy take, which ignores the issue of the racism bleeding back into Delaware when it already has.
You know my position on this. Puck has been blistering my ass about it since I first called Netanyahu’s actions genocide.
But it has absolutely nothing to do with the duties of a State Representative.
I know more about Dennis E. Williams than you or anybody on your committee does. Some of it I haven’t written about and won’t write about.
He is unfit to serve. Period.
The point I made, which you have overlooked, is that, in what should be a fairly progressive district, NONE of the candidates look remotely representative of the people who live there.
I try to blister only ideas, not people.
“an IDF Colonel who calls Arab citizens of Israel ‘traitors from within'”
Jonathan, I refrained from unpacking this bit last time you posted it, but now’s the time.
You misrepresented the IDF colonel’s remarks in your linked article. He didn’t call ALL Arab Israelis traitors – only those who had actually committed treason. Here’s what the colonel said, from the article you provided:
This is the very definition of treason, and not at all a generalized slur.
Not to mention, Levin is on the UD Hillel board that experienced a still-unsolved arson; no wonder she looks out for anti-semites from the left and the right.
Were Union sympathizers who lived in and spied on the South guilty of treason? Or were they bound by a greater loyalty? How about the French Resistance? “The very definition of treason” is too slippery for me to accept your proclaimation.
At any rate, this is silly. She’s on the board of UD Hillel. Jonathan thinks she should have resigned, one supposes, because this guy made a statement they can construe as anti-Arab (similarly, some Jews leap to call any support for Gazans and other Palestinians anti-Semitic). And then he expects El Som to trash her because, one supposes, he would.
You know, Jonathan, you can just make the statement about Melanie without making it ad hominem about El Som. I don’t like it when the Christian right tells me how I’m supposed to act, and I don’t like it any better when self-appointed scolds do it. In my experience, nobody does.
If you want to look for how you can improve instead of telling everybody else how they can, start there.
I don’t expect El Som to trash Melanie for this or whatever other reason. But I expect him to do better by our Arab neighbors in RD-10 than both sidesing her with a milquetoast liberal like Dennis E. Williams. I’m not scolding him, I know he’s a good dude and that’s why I said so, I’m just saying I wish he would do better.
As far as me being self-appointed, I’m the democratically elected co-leader of an organization with 185 members. How are you as a blogger somehow less “self-appointed” than I am, exactly?
I’m not. But I also don’t tell people what I expect of them.
And despite your fears I don’t think your Arab neighbors are very threatened by someone being on the board of Hillel. That you would inflate such a position into something objectionable says more about you than her.
YO! WTF is a Jewish Boomer? Not your best look buddy.
I’m confused? Is Steve not Jewish, and not of the Baby Boomer age cohort?
In America it is considered good form to be color-blind as well as faith-blind when it comes to politics. Excessive attention to religion is the mark of the zealot.
We’re wandering way off-topic here.
Just thought I’d mention that.
Really? You really don’t think any reason why a Jewish person advocating for Palestine in America, where anything less than full throated support for Israel’s genocide gets you tarred as an antisemite or a self hating Jew?
Back on topic. Please.
Which is ‘The Least Intriguing Delaware Primaries Of 2024’. Once comments start disappearing, you’ll know why.
Ahh, well, in that case: I think Coelho wins 60-40 for the right to be curb stomped 60-40 by DeShanna (again).
Give it a little thought with some context.
I just saw that “Dr. Joe” has withdrawn from the Congressional race.
Oh, man…