Thursday Open Thread [12.5.13]

Thursday Open Thread [12.5.13]

7 Comments
Steve Newton over at Delaware Libertarian has an interesting point.
Over at Delaware Liberal, Cassandra has another post up about crime in Wilmington. Cassandra and I have our differences, but she continues to do excellent fact-based blogging about the nature of the problem, the potential solutions, and the general ineptitude/malaise of the current governmental apparatus to solve the problem. As Cassandra knows and has blogged repeatedly, this ain't rocket science. There are a lot of evidence-proven strategies (like full-scale community policing with a constitutionally careful stop and frisk approach) that could make a dent, a serious dent, in crime and violence in Wilmington. The problem is--in this one-party state--the Democrats don't care enough about reducing what amounts to urban terrorism in Wilmington to do anything about it. Instead, last year, they supported a State budget that included millions to bail out casinos and tens of millions in corporate welfare rather than invest in either inner-city education or crime fighting.
Good points, Steve. If the Democrats make a huge investment in fighting crime in Wilmington, I am sure you will support it, even if it means raising taxes on the rich to pay for it.
Wednesday Open Thread [12.4.13]

Wednesday Open Thread [12.4.13]

17 Comments
Polly Sierer was officially sworn in as Newark’s new mayor last night in City Council Chambers. I admit that that I did not follow Newark's election very closely, since I do not live in Newark and it was a non partisan election focused on local issues. Indeed, I did not have to cover it since Nancy Willing at the Delaware Way did a fantastic job doing so, as she always does on local New Castle County matters. But the election took a turn to the interesting yesterday:
Roe and a small group of residents sought to delay the swearing in over questions that had regarding an outside advocacy group’s activities and confusion regarding polling place information.
Nancy has more. Kavips has much more on what he calls a power grab.
Tuesday Open Thread [12.3.13]

Tuesday Open Thread [12.3.13]

2 Comments
Kevin O'Holleran, who managed Mark Herring's (D) campaign for Virginia attorney general, writes that gun control was the key to Herring's narrow win.
"Political conventional wisdom has it that in a purple state, such as Virginia, support for gun-safety legislation is best played down. As manager of Mark Herring's campaign for attorney general, I got a lot of advice. One of the things I heard most frequently was that we should soft-pedal his strong record and advocacy for sensible gun legislation. It would hurt us outside of Northern Virginia and wasn't a voting issue within the Beltway, I was told. Like much conventional wisdom, this was wrong -- and we not only ignored this advice but did the opposite."
You know why? Because those who are against gun control to such an extent that it is their number 1 issue will never vote Democratic. They will always vote Republicans. So those voters are lost. And Democratic candidates will lose even more voters, from their own base, if they soft pedal or play down not only their records but their positions on reasonable gun control. Stand up and Man and Woman Up, Democrats.
Legislative Scorecards from the ADA and the PDD

Legislative Scorecards from the ADA and the PDD

6 Comments
December is the time of year for year end reviews. The Delaware General Assembly will be restarting its 147th Session this January, and now is a good time to see what they did, and how they did it. The Delaware chapter of Americans for Democratic Action released its 2013 Legislative Report Card last month. Their legislative report card focuses on the individual members of the General Assembly and how they sponsored and voted on specific progressive pieces of legislation. The Progressives Democrats for Delaware (PDD) released their legislative scorecard today, and they instead focused on how their progressive priority legislation fared in the General Assembly as a whole that is completely controlled by Democrats. The PDD report is entitled "The Good, the Bad, and the Incomplete" and states that "four legislative goals were achieved; four were defeated, while four were incomplete." The full reports are inside.
Looks like we have a candidate for Auditor. But what about Treasurer?

Looks like we have a candidate for Auditor. But what about Treasurer?

12 Comments
State Auditor Tom Wagner has been in office since 1988. He barely won reelection last time, in a year favoring Republicans (2010), against Richard Korn, a man that people were not rushing to vote for even before he was indicted on child pornography charges. A credible candidate beats him this time. Attorney Brenda Mayrack seems to have both the party backing, knowledge and auditing experience to be that credible candidate. Now, as for the Treasurer. The oldest addage in politics is you can't beat something with nothing, though the Republicans have really tried to test it out over the last five years. Right now, the conventional wisdom is Treasurer Flowers is in trouble and ripe for defeat at the hands of a GOP candidate. That has the Democratic establishment talking behind the scenes to Celia Cohen that they will be primarying Flowers with someone. But who?
Monday Open Thread [12.2.13]

Monday Open Thread [12.2.13]

5 Comments
Did you hear that Rosa Parks, all the way back in the 1950's, ended racism? Yes, there has not been any racism in the United States for over over sixty years now. Amazing. No racism at all. Since there was no racism any more in 1968, it seems very silly that the GOP then devised the entire Southern Strategy to attract the votes of racists. I am amazed Nixon and then Reagan won at all, since obviously they attracted zero votes with that core campaign strategy, since there were no more racists or racism.