Delaware

When it comes to pass that Senator for Life, Tom Carper, sides with Republicans and votes to override the President's veto of the Keystone XL pipeline it could change things here in Delaware. At long last, all pretense will be set aside and even the most out of touch Democrat will know that Carper is not a member of the Democratic Party in any meaningful sense. It will be an undeniable break with public sentiment on the issue of the environment and the brazen opposition to the President will be impossible for him to hide from. It doesn't mean that he will lose the next election - he is the Senator for Life after all. But I think it does open up some room for actual Democrats to begin to assert what it means to be a Democrat, and perhaps begin rebuilding the Party's brand equity. It could take a generation for the party to recover from the damage that Tom Carper has inflicted on it, but I think a recovery is possible. Recovering our sense of what the Democratic Party stands for is therefor, something we should be preparing for. When this execrable vote happens, we need to be ready to use the public disgust with Carper to launch a larger movement to articulate Democratic values. Just this morning I was thinking that I might register as a Green Party, but just the prospect of this vote - this horrific inevitable vote has sparked something in me that I haven't felt for a while. It has reminded me of the fact that votes do matter. That Carper is in DC to represent me and my interests. That's his job. It has fired me up to demand that he do his job for a change.

If this guy wants to be our next Democratic governor, the least he could do is at least pretend to be a Democrat. The bill almost passed, thanks in part to Carney's supposed bipartisanship. Maybe he'll hold a REAL town meeting where someone can ask him how a Democrat votes to screw citizens while giving carte blanche to huge financial institutions that demonstrate time and time again that they will use the lack of regulation to make obscene piles of money by winning a rigged game. A game that the Carneys of this world help rig. Maybe a real newspaper would ask him the same question.  Too bad we no longer have one.

Nancy Willing at Delaware Way has been all over this and I'm sure El Som will be into the nitty gritty of how and why Kowalko was bounced from the Chairmanship of Energy and from the Education Committee. All I can really add is that Jack Markell seems to really hate John Kowalko on a personal level. I had heard stories from early in Jack's tenure and I chalked it up to hyperbole, but it gets hard to ignore stories when confirming evidence starts to pile up.