Tag Archives: 2010 Election

Final Thought

Sometimes I wonder if maybe Tom Carper is encouraging Castle to run for Senate, so they can go on riding Amtrak together for 6 more years. Castle would support Carper’s watered-down no-brainer environmental agenda, Carper would support Castle’s money picture schemes, and together they’d protect big corporations from consumers. I’m not saying Carper would actively campaign for Castle, but in a Castle-Beau race, I wouldn’t count on seeing Carper show his face a whole lot on the campaign trail. Would Carper encourage Beau to run for re-election rather than the Senate? Would you put it past him? And who would run instead?

I know, I’m just indulging in worthless idle speculation – the kind that made Celia Cohen the Delaware celebrity (delebrity?) she is today. Well, that and butt-kissing.

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Early National Press Reaction to Carney’s Announcement

After this morning’s excitement of John Carney’s official press announcement of his campaign to unseat Mike Castle in Congress, I thought it might be interesting to see how the political media is reporting on this:

  • CQ Politics Blog provides some good detail and background (along with a decent picture of Carney!):

    Carney’s candidacy will be welcomed by House Democratic strategists, who have had great difficulty recruiting against Castle. They have effectively ceded most of the past nine elections to the incumbent even as Delaware, long a partisan swing state, has undergone a strong trend favoring the Democrats.

  • The Hill.com pretty much repeats what we’ve seen already.
  • The National Journal has a succinct look at the playing field:

    Castle sits in a precarious seat; he’s one of just six GOPers who sit in CDs that went for John Kerry in ’04 and Obama in ’08. In fact, Obama won DE with 62% of the vote. But Castle’s strength as a moderate GOPer, along with the relative weakness of his Dem opponents, has led to his solid re-elections in the past.

    Carney’s entry changes those dynamics. This race will likely be a competitive contest — that is, if Castle does indeed run for re-election. He’s reportedly considering a SEN bid, or he may choose to retire. In the 1stQ, he raised more than $74K, and while he has more than $800K CoH, that 1stQ number is still a relatively weak one for a candidate preparing for a tough re-election or a SEN battle.

    If Castle does not run, Carney will be the favorite to capture the seat for Dems. GOPers have almost no bench in the state.

  • WDEL provides its look plus some audio of interviews with Carney and his current primary opponent, Scott Spencer

Castle Not Running for Senate.

Get used to that headline. The 2010 general election is approximately 500 days away. Yes, that is a long time and anything can happen, but in this day and age, if a politician does have serious designs on running in an election that is sure to be hotly contested, there would be tell tale signs of those intentions. And the first and foremost is that candidate’s fundraising.

Mike Castle has only raised a relatively paltry $71,500 in the first quarter of 2009. Now, if he had designs on running for the Senate, he is sure to know that he will be facing either former Lt. Governor John Carney or Attorney General Beau Biden, either of whom will be able to raise significant amounts of money for the race, with the added fundraising star power of Vice President Joe Biden if the younger Biden is the candidate.

To put the $71,500 in perspective, if he averages that amount for the rest of the year, he will have only raised $858,000 for 2009. And since a contested election against Carney or Biden will require three months if not more of advertising in the expensive Philadelphia media market, you can see the problem.

It may be sufficient for a reelection campaign to the House if he faces yet another sacrificial lamb. But given the rumors that Carney may also consider running for the House, Castle’s fundraising makes you think he is retiring altogether. Indeed, by the third quarter in 2007, Castle had raised $227,675 and had $1.4 million cash on hand, for only a House reelect where he was not seriously challenged.