Delaware Dem

Thursday Open Thread [10.8.2015]

Sen. Bernie Sanders “is uninterested in going through the motions of typical debate practice,” Politico reports.

“While CNN is billing the event as a showdown, Sanders’ team sees the first Democratic debate as a chance to introduce a fairly niche candidate to a national audience. So his team intends to let him do what he’s been doing. Far from preparing lines to deploy against Clinton — let alone O’Malley, Lincoln Chafee, or Jim Webb — Sanders plans to dish policy details, learned through a handful of briefings with experts brought in by his campaign.”

I think that would be a good thing. A detailed filled debate. No personal attacks. Quite a contrast to the GOP.

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Bethany Hall-Long to run for Lt. Governor.

Not that it was much of a secret, since she attended the Jamboree in Sussex County (it is pretty rare for upstate politicians to do that unless you are running for something) and it has been rumored that she would run for some time. But now there is official paperwork. The News Journal says this will shake up the Lt. Governor race. I say it ends it.

But DD, there are now six candidates!?! How can you say it is over? Well…..

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Wednesday Open Thread [10.7.2015]

Nate Cohn: “Vice President Joe Biden has less support in the polls than Bernie Sanders and hasn’t raised a single dollar for a presidential campaign. Yet if Mr. Biden does decide to seek the presidency, he will pose a greater challenge to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.”

I agree. Sanders draws big crowds, and he polls well in New Hampshire, a state he might win. But Sanders is polling behind Biden in every later contest (see polling inside). Biden seems to have the better electability argument on his side, at least in Florida (see polling inside).

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I am liking the new Hillary Offensive

First it was the Charm Offensive with Saturday Night Live. Followed up by a Town Hall aired live on NBC and MSNBC. Where she was fiesty, on the attack and compassionate and sweet at the same time. And now she is out with a pretty great ad.

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Tuesday Open Thread [10.6.2015]

According to Politico, it was Joe Biden himself who first talked to Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, “painting a tragic portrait of a dying son, Beau’s face partially paralyzed, sitting his father down and trying to make him promise to run for president because ‘the White House should not revert to the Clintons and that the country would be better off with Biden values.’”

“It was no coincidence that the preliminary pieces around a prospective campaign started moving right after that column. People read Dowd and started reaching out, those around the vice president would say by way of defensive explanation. He was just answering the phone and listening. But in truth, Biden had effectively placed an ad in The New York Times, asking them to call.”

First, I am not sure if that is more or less crass than if someone else relayed the story or if the Vice President himself did it. Second, I do not believe that exact quote ever escaped the mouth of Beau Biden. I could see “Dad, you should run. You must run.” But not “The White House should not revert to the Clintons and that the country would be better off with Biden values.”

I mean, really?

When this story first came out back in August, I chucked that quote up to a hyperbolic fabrication or paraphrase on the part of Maureen Dowd, because she is known for that. But if Vice President Biden was the source of the story and quote, whoa boy. That means those words are Joe Biden’s creation. And that tells us that he is running and he is going to go extremely negative on Hillary.

And that will be a devastating end to his career.

If this whole story is true in the first place.

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The Real Conspiracy

Mrs. Harper, the mother of the killer, stockpiled firearms because she feared stricter gun laws. She shared an apartment with her son. She was aware that he had mental problems, but chose to stockpile guns in her home because she feared the Obama administration was going to pass laws making it more difficult to get guns. She would seek the least restrictive gun ranges to take her son so the two of them could shoot as they desired, even while knowing her son had problems. She had purchased several guns just weeks before her son killed nine innocent people.

I want that woman arrested on 9 counts of conspiracy to commit murder.

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Upcoming PDD Panels will feature Education and the Congressional Primary

The Progressive Democrats for Delaware have two interesting panels/meetings coming up. First, this Wednesday at 7 pm at the Del Dem HQ in New Castle, there will be an Education Panel Discussion featuring Mike Matthews, Kevin Ohlandt, Elizabeth “Tizzy” Lockman, John M. Young, Vicki Bloss Seifred and Brian Stephan. The discussion will cover the huge issue of our state education policy: what’s being done, and what should be done.

Come November 4, the PDD will have a meeting that will feature a presentation on Citizens United led by Judith A. Butler. Attending the meeting in perhaps their first joint appearance as primary opponents will be Democratic candidates for Congress, Rep. Bryon Short and Sen. Bryan Townsend, both prime sponsors of SCR 6, calling for an Article V Convention to Amendment the U S Constitution concerning Citizens United. Since it is an issue on which they agree, I am not sure there will be much fireworks, but still, the PDD did a great job in getting both candidates together for this presentation.

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Monday Open Thread [10.5.2015]

Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. calls out Republicans for their shameless pandering to the gun industry and commends President Obama for “politicizing” the latest mass shootings:

President Obama spoke some of the most important words of his tenure last week in response to the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore. “This is something we should politicize,” the president said. “It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic.”
This is something we should politicize. His statement was remarkable for violating the etiquette as to what a leader should say after another slaughter by a deranged gunman and the conventional wisdom about how politicians have to pretend that they are not engaged in politics.

But Obama was forcing us to face reality. It’s politics that has rendered our nation powerless in the face of butchery. There have been at least 142 school shootings since the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, and Congress has done nothing. It’s politics, as Obama said, that makes the U.S. “the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months,” and politics that leads our learned legislators to pass laws barring the government from “even collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths.”

…”Politicize” is the right word for another reason: We will not act until politicians start losing elections for opposing even the most modest gun safety measure. We will not act unless political parties that block action lose their majorities. Yes, I am talking about a Republican Party that has completely aligned itself with the interests of gun manufacturers and gun fanatics.

Dionne cites “the conclusion of a study released in August by National Journal: “The states that impose the most restrictions on gun users also have the lowest rates of gun-related deaths, while states with fewer regulations typically have a much higher death rate from guns.” Dionne adds, “State laws could be even more effective if they were matched by federal laws that made it harder for guns to get into the wrong hands.” Here is that chart. It is huge, so I can’t really post it here to fit the page and at the same time have you read it. So go click on that link.

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