Ron Williams Faults Carney for the Kaufman Appointment.

And I think I might agree with him.  Ron Williams better not be right here, because if he is, then that means the world has ended and soon four horsemen will be galloping across the sky.   In his column, Williams first lambasts Minner for following Biden’s lead.

It defies all political logic, especially in this state, why Minner didn’t fight the Biden group to make Carney the choice. She certainly made it known that she endorsed Carney’s candidacy for governor early in the process, unlike Gov. Tom Carper, she hinted, who never publicly endorsed her when his term was expiring.

Of course, Minner was preempted from a confrontation with Biden by Carney himself, who inexplicably said that he would accept the appointment under any circumstance, including yielding to Beau Biden in two years.  John Carney is nothing if he is not a loyal Democratic soldier.   Such loyalty explains his advancement in politics so far.   Indeed, during his service as a Lt. Governor who was more visible and in public than the Governor, Carney took more abuse and more blame for Minner’s failures than perhaps Minner herself.   Such loyalty to Minner, apparently innate in Carney, probably cost him the gubernatorial nomination.

[Carney] continued to refrain from dumping on Minner and the myriad missteps during her administration and concentrated on pointing out the differences between himself and Jack Markell. Carney could actually have turned around Markell’s 1,700-winning margin had he chosen to divorce himself from Minner’s pathetic administration. He also could have extrapolated himself from the administration’s screwups during his term as lieutenant governor since the lieutenant governor runs independently from the governor. But he didn’t. With the exception of a couple of cautious strays from the flock, Carney stayed loyal.

Despite Markell’s victory, Carney has proven more than once his ability to garner impressive statewide margins. He served as state secretary of finance under Carper and received the endorsement of the state party and virtually every Democratic subdivision in his run for governor. And his reward for remaining a loyal soldier? Zip.

What Williams is saying here is that Carney should have stood up for himself, and said to Biden: “You owe me this.”  He should have told Minner: “Listen up you old rotund hasbeen, I lost because of you, and you will now have my back.”   Certainly Carney has proven his loyalty to his own detriment.  But sometimes loyalty, whether blind or not, cultivates, for the lack of a better word, cowardice.  I am not calling Carney a coward, but he did not fight for himself when he should have.   He did not demand the loyalty he had earned after giving, for years, loyalty that was not.