I live in the 9th RD which makes up about half of Middletown and some of Bear and Delaware City.  When Dick Cathcart announced his retirement all hell broke loose.

On the Democratic side, Rick Griffiths was the endorsed candidate for the ticket.  He was gearing up his campaign for a hard slog against Cathcart when Dick announced his retirement.  Rebecca Walker (who had actually endorsed Griffiths as a member of the 9th Committee) jumped into the race that she had already unsuccessfully run twice before.  She has some advantages, since she only had to dust off the signs in her garage and already had some ties to traditional Democratic constituencies.  She quickly gained some endorsements from a few unions and groups.

In the few months since then, Walker has been increasingly daring in her claims.  While all of the local Democratic leaders have been officially uncommitted to either of the candidates, Walker has claimed to have won the endorsements of many of them.  Of course, she did win those endorsements in 2008, not 2010.  In her latest lit piece, she has a picture of herself with Senator Bruce Ennis.  However, Ennis has not endorsed her (nor has he officially endorsed Griffiths), but Ennis has given money to the Griffiths campaign.

Griffiths has been hesitant to strike back.  He has quietly walked the neighborhoods of his district knocking on doors, shaking hands and asking for votes.  In their only joint appearance (at the Blackbird Democratic Club meeting 2 weeks ago) both got up to speak and Walker was reportedly outclassed.  During that meeting, several local politicians stepped up to talk about a project that Griffiths had been heavily involved in with the county.

But here’s the thing, the Democratic contest is the relatively clean race.  John Marino and Tony Mirto on the Republican side have been battling on a lower level.  Marino is the Cathcart-selected candidate and the local committee has endorsed him.  Mirto is a newcomer/outsider that has been going for the jugular.

On Saturday, I got a lit piece from him with the question, “Convicted Criminal or Proven Hero?”  The piece is complete with a copy of the docket showing a conviction for reckless driving by John Marino.  And on a side note, who calls themselves a hero?  Seriously?

Among the assertions on the mailer was that Marino (besides being a convicted criminal) is a carpetbagger, a guy fired under mysterious circumstances and unendorsed by the Republican party.  Mirto, on the other hand, is a hero because he “provided security to Air Force One”.  He claims to be a military hero, but there is no evidence that he ever served in combat, so I’m not sure how exactly he earned his hero status.

As for carpetbagger and unendorsed status, I can’t confirm Mirto’s claim that he has lived in Delaware most of his life, but it appears that he hasn’t lived in Middletown as long as Marino.  And as I said, he was endorsed by the only Republican party committee that does endorsements.

If nothing else, these contests have produced a lot of heat in the local area and will be an interesting sideshow to the Castle/O’Donnell sideshow.