Granted, it is only breaking news if Delawaregrapevine.com is your only source for political news.
I guess Celia was feeling burned by not cottoning on to the fact that Carney was running when she made her triumphant return to blogging on April 23rd.
Anyway, it is official now. Carney is running. Everyone who has been wondering about that can now breath easy.
Tea Parties, John Carney running for Congress, and Charlie Copeland launches another website, oh my! BTW, if you haven’t checked out DV’s video montage of Wilmington’s tea parties you’ve missed some great reporting. (I’ve linked to one, but there’s plenty more!)
‘Bulo gives us another great Republican breakdown, while DelawareDem issues a Thank You and Jason rescues a comment that doesn’t reflect well on the GOP.
What’s on your minds today?
Yesterday’s events have convinced me that perenial candidate Mike Protack will be gunning to take out Mike Castle in a primary.
Will he pull it off? Of course not. The only way Protack gets on a ballot is if Castle and everyone else quits.
Nevertheless – the question of who will face Carney in the fall is a far from settled question.
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:
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.
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.
Mike Castle has given him plenty of ammunition – but it is still going to take a lot of money and ground game to defeat this long serving incumbent.
Carney gains nothing by staying on the sidelines.
UPDATE: A commenter asks, “Why Carney, why not Scott Spencer?”
See the graph below. I put Carney slightly below, but in the same quadrant as my dream candidate. Where would you put Spencer?
With the first set of polling numbers in, I’m ready to call these two election contests.
US Senate
Beau Biden vs. Christine O’Donnell
Biden will win in a walk and it will not make the front page. All the intrigue will occur prior to the ballot being set. On the Republican side there will be talk about Charlie Copeland or Gary Simpson stepping up to save the party from utter embarrassment – but they will both figured A) that if Mike Castle can beg off they can too, and B) they really would not be sparing the party much embarrasment when all is said and done.
US House of Representatives
John Carney vs. Mike Castle
Once Tom Carper endorses Carney it will be all over for Mike Castle. The race will still be close based on Castle’s long history of delivering large novelty checks to volunteer fire companies and Sr. Centers, but his record (and a well run campaign drawing national interest) will finally catch up with him.
Little Delaware will get some national attention when North Carolina based, Public Policy Polling begins polling in Delaware to determine how Beau Biden fares against Mike Castle in order to see if there’s any chance Democrats don’t keep Biden Sr’s Senate seat in 2010.
They will also be polling to see how John Carney might do against Mike Castle in a hypothetical contest for the Delaware’s House seat.
The Bottom Line: While we know that Mike Castle is not running for the Senate, this news will raise John Carney’s national profile thereby making it more likely that Castle will retire rather than face a tough contest to retain his house seat.
WNJ reports:
Lt. Gov. John Carney will take a position in the private sector when he leaves office on Jan. 20, after he said he turned down an offer to serve as the state’s treasurer.
Carney will take the post of chief operating officer for Delaware-based Transformative Technologies, a systems engineering and information company that creates proprietary and patented intellectual property in the fields of green technology and advanced information systems, he announced in a press release today.
h/t LA (AKA MC)
It looks like the race to fill Castle’s open seat in 2010 just got it’s first campaigner.
Lt. Gov. John Carney has decided “beyond a doubt” that he’s “running for a federal office in 2010,” according to a source close to his campaign operation. He has a couple of private sector job offers that will allow him the freedom to attend campaign related activities for the next two years, according to another source close to Carney.
This was nearly lost in Williams’ unseemly sucking of Tom Gordon’s ***k this morning.
Photo by betsythedevine (CC license)
This past week has been a little slow on the Delaware news as blogged by Delaware bloggers. We’ve had the stories that guessed who would suceed Biden as Senator, even a plea for Beau not to to Iraq and another to say he should and Beau saying he’s not interested in his dad’s seat.
Gov.-Elect Markell is asking for ideas on how to fix the state, we gave some and so did Delawonk. What’s not surprsing is that there is agreement across the aisle.
On the state legislative front, the Democrats have picked Michael Migliore to run in the special election for the 6th Representative District. Delaware Watch questions the need for Republicans to show up in the State Senate.
Delaware’s Dan Pfeffier has been named as Deputy Communications Director for the Obama Administration which puts the count to 3 Delawareans who potentially have Obama’s ear.
On State News front, the list of Delaware’s top tax scofflaws has been released and, maybe, Gov. Minner isn’t doing too bad of a job.
Some stories to read from this week are:
That may be my mantra for this trip. It was a nice town, but it isn’t my bag. I don’t know if I could do this again, let alone every year. The city felt like a cross between a boardwalk and Vegas. But, if you like musicals or country music, or shtick or buffets (OK, I like them, too) you will have a much better time than I.
Ruth Ann Minner must appoint John Carney to the position of US Senator as soon as Joe Biden steps down. Joe Biden is currently number 5 in seniority in the Senate. This is a big deal for Delaware. Joe got his pick of committee assignments, choice accommodations and a bully pulpit for his (Delaware’s) issues.
Check out the anticipated seniority of the incoming Senate. Currently, the new Senator from Illinois will come in at number 92. This ranking assumes that Joe Biden doesn’t resign, Ted Stevens gets to stay, and that Norm Coleman wins in Minnesota. I will grant you that Coleman has a shot of staying, but the other two are foregone conclusions.
This leaves the IL Senator as number 90 (or 89) and makes Delaware number 91. If you also consider the possibility that John Kerry and Hillary Clinton are being considered for the cabinet (although that may be an either/or issue). It is even possible that Saxby Chambliss could be a goner. Speaking of which, there’s Ted Kennedy.
This could put John Carney in the Senate in the high 80’s of seniority. The very complexion of the Senate is going to change in the next few years and having a Senator that is going to be there for 25 or 30 years, starting now makes Delaware a stronger state. It took Tom Carper 6 years to rise to the high 80’s in seniority (he will be at 56 once Joe resigns).
How about this, if Ted Stevens wins his hotly contested reelection bid, Sarah Palin could (possibly illegally) appoint herself to the position in the event of his expulsion from the Senate. Would you really want Sarah Palin being sworn in ahead of John Carney? Or even one of his rivals?
Joe, please resign. Ruth Ann, please appoint John Carney. If not, we run the very real risk of Mike Castle stealing that seat from Beau in an open election in 2010 and having a Senator ranked number 100 and in the minority party.
There is no reason for me to do an election recap, because it has already been done along with the best headline of the week, More Analysis on Pamela Thonrburg’s “Snatch”. Damn you kavips, damn you! While I’m reading kavips, one would have to be blind regarding the Paradee-Thornburg “re-count” fiasco, However I’m with Al Mascitti on this one, “Has anyone done a story that deals with the claims from both sides in a tick-tock fashion?” Delawonk has a good technical post on recounts.
And now that the election is over, we can start guessing on who Gov. Minner will pick to take Vice President-Elect Biden’s Senate seat. DelawareDem writes:
I think the new CW at work is that John Carney is owed this appointment by Minner, and that Carney is more than capable in serving as Senator.
Kilroy has some other ideas and since his Copeland prediction didn’t pan out so well, my money is on Carney. Mr. Kilroy, let me leave you with these words from Robert Burton.
A good conscience is a continual feast.
While the national media speculates over how President-Elect Obama will fill his Administration, we in the First State begin our speculation. Top of the list is the rumor that Governor-Elect Markell has picked Dennis Rochford for his Chief of Staff. Delaware Watch says that “selecting him will not probably not sit well with many Democratic Party insiders.“ But at least we can guess about Markell’s cabinet, can’t we?
Great pictures from Return Day courtesy of your friendly neighborhood Libertarian who also finds results from Tuesday’s election encouraging for the future. Mike Mahaffie has a Return Day post with photos as well.
Brian Shields is showing himself to be an upstanding blogger as he looks back at the Insurance Commissioner contest; however he wrongly thinks open government is dead. 😉
The one fan of Jason Scott should check our Mike Matthew’s mid-day election post and scroll to the bottom. New on the endangered blog list, daveburris.com.
From The Archives:
With our fearless leader being wrong so often, it is always nice to be reminded that he can be right sometimes as he was in What Is Wrong With The Republican Party?.
. . . .
I show up at the Odessa Fire Hall and take my seat next to my Republican counterpart. A virulent racists “movement conservative” who claims that Hillary Clinton is a lesbian who was “uniformly despised by the secret service” who she regularly berated. He knew all of this because he “read it in a book.”
. . .
The photo of President-Elect Obama from Election Night is courtesy of Obama for America.
Tonight was my first Jefferson-Jackson Dinner and oh what a year to start. As I travelled down Rt.1 at 5:30 I passed Tommywonk and his lovely date in a convertible with the top down. Damn, even Tommy looks cool heading out for a great night of wonkiness. As I walked into the Dover Downs hotel I caught up to Dana Rohrbough and Joe Rogalski, both of the Markell Campaign, they pointed me in the right direction, which was to check in and go through the metal detectors. Word is that Carper got frisked when he came in, and I bet he liked it.
Once past the Secret Service, I got to have a moment with Jack Markell and then I was off to find a table. I’ll tell you what, you get some crappy seats when you don’t donate a boatload of money. I caught up with Mike Matthews while searching and we ended up sitting with Earl Jaques and his family.
Matthews is an awesome person to sit with, because he knows everyone and he laughs at my inane jokes. His favorite of my jokes this evening was my response to a question about whether Dominque was at the event. “She’s at the white’s only table,” I said. He was still chuckling at that one 30 minutes later.
John Kowalko came and hung out with us for a little while. I cannot decide in my relationship with John whether he is the groupie or if I am. I think I’m the groupie.
The most interesting person to watch tonight was Karen Weldin Stewart. I think she must have bet someone that she could shake the hand of every person in the room. She wasn’t going to let pesky speeches, prayers or awards get between her and her goal, so she worked the tables non-stop. Literally non-stop. I really wish she would have stopped.
She seems to have developed a following of haters. After the festivities, I was polling people to see if any of them knew what exactly McDowell and her did at R-WAY to make money. I got a lot of blank stares and then wild stories about her financial well-being (or lack thereof). For a while, she was reportedly hanging out with Tom Savage (her independent opponent who was inexplicably at a Democratic event).
Back to the people that matter, Ruth Ann gave her last address as Governor to the J-J dinner. Ugh. It was like a who’s who of crappy Democrats for a while, with Daniello and Minner and later, Carper. Jack Markell and John Carney both gave excellent speeches that made me proud. There is absolutely no doubt that the hachet has been buried between these two. And during Carpers speech, I got the distinct impression that Carney had the inside track on the Senate seat.
Carper must have been given the job of introducing Biden, so as to make Biden look even better by contrast. Before his speech, I saw him shaking hands with Chris Coons and trying out his new word, “JoeBama”(rhymes with “yo momma”). During his speech, he wanted everyone to try out his new word. As I told Cassandra, I kept trying to say it, but every time I opened my mouth, all that came out was STFU. Next year, let’s not give the job of stalling to Tom Carper. I would have shot myself, but I would have missed Biden.
When Biden came on stage (you could tell he was coming before he got there because of the Secret Service detail.) the place went wild. Joe Started off slowly, thanking Minner (ugh), talking about the Bayard Family, and talking about Thurman Adama (ugh). But once he got going, he kicked ass. About halfway through, he seemed to find the sweet spot and he opened up his lungs and let loose. The crowd loved it, and so did I.
Afterward, John Kowalko introduced me to Darlene Battle, of ACORN. She and I spoke about the bum rap that ACORN has been getting in the past few weeks. She told me about the calls, emails and death threats that she has gotten in the past 2 weeks. John couldn’t stop telling me about how much Darlene did. How she worked 60 hours a week to help the community. How she went 3 months without a paycheck because things were tight. I promised Darlene that I would be in touch to set up an interview.
All in all, it was a fun night. I got to hang with Mike Matthews, Cassandra, Tommywonk, Unstable Isotope and Stella Bluez. I love our readers, our bloggers and our state. It was a good evening to be with good people.