Tag Archives: Mike Castle

Delaware Conservatives Attack Mike Castle

The News Journal‘s Dialogue Delaware blog finds this web ad that Delaware supporters of Christine O’Donnell’s campaign made to attack Mike Castle.

It’s interesting to see what conservatives highlight. They hate “Cash for Clunkers,” hate the idea that Mike Castle won’t say health care reform is unConstitutional and highlight this bill HR2499: The Puerto Rico Democracy Act. I know this bill has been part of a conservative freak out lately but I don’t know much about it except that it would allow Puerto Rico to vote on its own status.

I really wish I had some video skills, because this is dying for a parody.

Bumps In The Road For The Rollins Coronation?

Republican Glenn Urquhart has released a poll showing that he leads Michelle Rollins in the primary race to replace Mike Castle. Take this poll with a huge grain of salt because it’s an internal poll with high undecideds. WDEL has the details:

A new poll suggests downstate real estate developer Glen Urquhart has an edge over Michele Rollins with Republican primary voters.

Kim Stevenson with the Urquhart campaign tells WDEL News GOP polling firm Wilson Research Strategies polled 300 likely Republican primary voters April 20th and 21st.

The survey says by a 53 to 47-percent margin, voters with an opinion of both candidates are likely to back Urquhart, but also says 60 percent of those responding are undecided, so the race is still wide open.

I think this will be a very interesting primary race. Michelle Rollins represents the country club Republicans, who are a dying breed in the Republican party but are likely still the majority among Delaware Republicans. Glenn Urquhart seems to be much more like the standard Southern Republican that we’re used to. I think this election will tell us a lot about the state of Delaware’s Republican party.

Rasmussen Puts Castle Up By 23%

Rasmussen released a new poll for the Delaware U.S. Senate race.

The U.S. Senate race in Delaware is virtually unchanged over the past two months, with Republican Mike Castle continuing to draw strong support from the state’s voters.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Delaware shows Castle picking up 55% support to Democrat Chris Coons’ 32%. Seven percent (7%) of the state’s voters prefer some other candidate, while another seven percent (7%) are undecided.

It’s Rasmussen, so take it with a grain of salt. Rasmussen identifies where Coons needs to work:

Seventy-five percent (75%) of Delaware voters who Strongly Favor repeal give their vote to Castle, while Coons picks up 64% support from those who Strongly Oppose repeal.

Seventy-one percent (71%) of Delaware voters correctly identify Republicans as the party criticized by some as the Party of No for their unified opposition to President Obama’s agenda. Thirty-nine percent (39%) see this label as a bad thing these days, while 30% say it’s good thing to be labeled that way. Another 31% are not sure.

So 36% of people who favor health care reform give their vote to Castle despite the fact that Castle has never voted to reform health care.

Also in the poll – Markell has 58% approval.

A Team Of Moderates

The News Journal decides what is and isn’t news. Chris Coons’s 3 county announcement – not news. Michelle Rollins appearing at a Republican event – news. Apparently appearances by Chris Coons or John Carney at Democratic events does not qualify as news either. Not only has the NJ covered two appearances by Rollins at Republican candidate forums, they’ve also declared her a moderate before she’s ever taken one vote in Congress.

Moderate Republican Michele Rollins made one of her first campaign stops for the U.S. House race deep in conservative territory Thursday.

That’s the very first sentence of last Thursday’s article on Michelle Rollins’s appearance in front of a candidate forum hosted by the 9/12 Patriots.

Rollins, 64, already has taken heat for her abortion-rights position, a spot on the board of Wilmington Trust, which accepted TARP funds from the federal government, and a one-time donation to Vice President Joe Biden’scampaign.

So, what positions make you a moderate, in the News Journal‘s eyes?

Opening with a speech about how she decided to enter politics because she was unhappy with health care reform, Rollins railed on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and told the crowd she wants to go to Washington to help dismantle Democrats’ overreaching spending.

A moderate, according to the NJ, is someone who hates health care reform, makes fun of Nancy Pelosi and doesn’t like Democrats. Oh, and she gives lip service to supporting abortion rights for women. The bar is set awful low to be considered a Republican moderate these days. I guess the NJ has decided that Rollins and Castle are a team – a team of moderates.

So, why is the News Journal giving so much coverage to Michelle Rollins and not Glenn Urquhart, Kevin Wade or Rose Izzo? Scott Spencer appeared before the 9/12 Patriot group – why not him? Where is the coverage of John Carney or Chris Coons?

If the News Journal decides they’d like to cover the Democratic candidates, a list of events can be found here.

Is The News Journal In The Tank For Castle?

Ron Williams gives a little throwaway item at the end of his column today:

Taking care to take credit

Did I miss something? I thought the governor’s office, not the county executive, was working to restart Valero since it was shut down.

“The deal is a demonstration of what strong Democratic leadership can do for Delaware and is the reason I’m running for the Senate.”

Oh, OK. Why didn’t you just say that? Now I understand.

Really, Ron? You see no role for county officials in bringing business to New Castle County? Jack Markell himself praised Chris Coons’s role in the Valero and Fisker deals, but he would have known that if the NJ had bothered to cover the Chris Coons announcement.

Tornoe’s Toon: Kaufman’s Baton

Ted Kaufman Mike Castle Chris Coons

If you’d like to contact me, feel free to drop me a line at robtornoe@delawareliberal.net. You can also follow me on twitter @RobTornoe.

And make sure you pick up The Community News, The Dover Post, The Middletown Transcript or any of the Dover Post papers throughout the state to check out my cartoons every week.

Mike Castle Is A Hypocrite, Part Eleventy Billion

Unlike nemski, I like this new guy with the Coons campaign. He came out swinging today against Castle’s complete hypocrisy. Castle, who’s voted against providing jobs through stimulus and against unemployment benefits, is hosting a jobs fair.

“Congressman Castle voted against job creation many times before deciding to hold another jobs fair,” said Coons Communications Director Dave Hoffman. “This is another example of the Congressman trying to have it both ways. While I commend the Congressman for setting aside his anti-job voting record for a moment in order to take time helping out-of-work Delawareans identify job opportunities, people in this state are smart enough to realize they can do better than electing a U.S. senator who says one thing in Delaware and casts votes against their interests in Washington.”

Way to go Coons campaign! The story has already been picked up by the News Journal blog as well.

Mike Castle Announces Support For Health Care Repeal Efforts

Mike Castle tries to be all things to all people. His carefully worded statement about health care reform repeal fooled the News Journal editorial board into praising his sensible stance.

“While this president is in office, repealing this full law is not realistic and not the best use of our efforts,” Castle said in a statement.

Many of us in the blogosphere read this statement to mean that he would be open to repeal if a Republican was president. In appearance in front of a group of Republicans, he assured them that he is open to repeal.

“You’re not going to be able to repeal this legislation,” says Castle. “Now maybe we could if there’s an election for a new president and you have a couple of elections for Congress. I’d be willing to consider it.”

Dave Weigel followed up with Chris Shirley, the leader of the Delaware Tea Party. Shirley doesn’t seem convinced about Castle’s commitment to the cause of repeal:

“His take on it,” said Shirey, “from the way he explained it to us, is that trying to repeal the bill is a waste of effort — it’s a waste of time. Our thought is, how do you know unless you try? What he said in this video … I think that’s what he’s trying to put out there, what he’s been saying to us, that it’s a wasted effort. We feel he should be more firm on that.”

Shirey said that tea party activists were annoyed with Castle for not coming around on the issue. “We’re not ready to hang him out to dry,” she said, “but he has irritated some of us.”

So, Castle loves having uninsured people? I wonder which part of the bill he wants to repeal first – pre-existing condition exemptions for children? Don’t worry though, Castle supports allowing insurance companies to sell crappy insurance over state lines.

The Young Eagles & Mike Castle

Commenter anonone points us to this link from Politico. The article explains what the Young Eagles program is supposed to do and how it works. The program is supposed to encourage younger rich Republicans to become high dollar donors to the RNC. What it actually does is function as a way for the RNC to pay for events for young Republicans (like the lesbian bondage sex club). Included in this report is a description of one Young Eagles event attended by Mike Castle.

Take the group’s October outing to a Monday night National Football League game between the Washington Redskins and the Philadelphia Eagles at FedEx Field in suburban Washington, for which the RNC paid $20,300 to rent a suite, according to the committee’s FEC filings.

The filings also show a $5,000 payment to the Redskins’ stadium about the same time for “office supplies,” which could not be immediately explained by an RNC spokesman, who also did not know how much was raised by the event.

But among those who took in the game from the RNC’s suite were Steele, Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) and Erik Brown, the Young Eagle member who footed the Voyeur bill — none of whom contributed to the RNC in 2009 or through February 2010.

In other filings items like alcohol were classified as “office supplies.” I think it’s time to ask Mike Castle what kind of office supplies he was using at the Eagles game in October.

Tornoe’s Toon: The Quiet Chris Coons

Hey everyone! The folks at Delaware Liberal were kind enough to offer me a spot in their sandbox to post my cartoons, so here’s my first offering. If you’d like to contact me, feel free to drop me a line at robtornoe@delawareliberal.net. You can also follow me on twitter @RobTornoe.

And make sure you pick up The Community News, The Dover Post, The Middletown Transcript or any of the Dover Post papers throughout the state to check out my cartoons every week.

Radio Ad — Call Mike Castle Hands Off Our Healthcare!

Good job!

I heard this ad during Al Mascitti’s show Friday AM — it is a good reminder that Mike Castle is spending his days in DC voting for the interests of his party and for those of various lobbyists.

[quicktime]https://delawareliberal.net//wp-content/uploads/2010/03/CastleVoteNoHealthCare032610.mp3[/quicktime]

It’s a good idea for Delawareans to remind him that we are still here, so calling him to say Hands Off is a good idea. If you’re lucky, you’ll catch the office on recess from John Boehner’s Congressional Vote Re-Education Camp.

Another Fracture in the GOP Wall

This time TalkingPointsMemo documents the infighting:

For Republican candidates across the country, the movement du jour seems to be a pledge to repeal health care reform if elected. Republicans are rushing to co-sponsor and promote efforts to repeal the bill on Capitol Hill. But not everyone is biting, exposing another fissure between the GOP’s right and far-right.

The latest GOPers caught in the mix are in Delaware — with candidate Christine O’Donnell (R-DE) challenging Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE) to sign on to repeal plans. Castle, like every single Congressional Republican, opposed the legislation. But he said that repealing “is not realistic.”

Even DelawarePolitics.net (in their capacity as unpaid PR arm of the Christine O’Donnell campaign) gets quoted from Christine’s press release:

But according to DelawarePolitics.net, O’Donnell charges that by not signing, Castle is “breaking faith with the people of Delaware and America in refusing to support the conservative-led effort to repeal ObamaCare, a totally disastrous and unconstitutional health bill.”

There’s more spats at the link, but one thing that TPM missed was that Castle made his decision to not repeal the Affordable Care Act conditional on Democrats still controlling government. Apparently he would be on board with rolling back a new regulatory regime on insurance companies as well as expanded coverage for Americans if Republicans were in charge.

Unfortunately for Christine, it is a safe bet that Mike Castle probably doesn’t even know she has issued this challenge to him — it seems a safe bet that given the messy way she seems to occupy the political space, Castle and his people (and the entire State R Party, I’d bet) have pretty much decided that they can safely ignore her.

(Thanks to Jason330 for the h/t!)

Student Loan Reform

Somewhat overshadowed by all the attention on the health care reform bill was the student loan overhaul that was added into the reconciliation package:

Ending one of the fiercest lobbying fights in Washington, Congress voted Thursday to force commercial banks out of the federal student loan market, cutting off billions of dollars in profits in a sweeping restructuring of financial-aid programs and redirecting most of the money to new education initiatives.

It’s been lost in the bank bailout fight, but the U.S. government has been sending money to banks for years to give out student loans.

Since the bank-based loan program began in 1965, commercial banks like Sallie Mae and Nelnet have received guaranteed federal subsidies to lend money to students, with the government assuming nearly all the risk. Democrats have long denounced the program, saying it fattened the bottom line for banks at the expense of students and taxpayers.

The overhaul cuts out the middleman and makes the federal government the direct lender. This change will save us money and help more people who want to go to college.

The Congressional Budget Office said the direct-lending approach would save taxpayers about $61 billion over 10 years. Roughly $40 billion of the savings will be redirected to higher education. Education programs will get an additional $10 billion from the health care package.

The bill includes some landmark changes, like automatic increases, tied to inflation, in the maximum Pell grant award. But for individual students, the increase in the maximum Pell grant — to $5,900 in 2019-20 from $5,550 for the 2010-11 school year — is minuscule, compared with the steep, inexorable rise in tuition for public and private colleges alike.

One of the biggest student loan servicers, Sallie Mae, has a branch in Delaware. Mike Castle was against the student loan overhaul, citing Delaware jobs as one of his reasons.

Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del., who voted against both the House health care reform and student loan bills, said he will oppose the new legislation, describing the ending of subsidies as “government-controlled student lending” and saying “the change would also eliminate hundreds of jobs for Delawareans, and tens of thousands of jobs across the country, in the middle of a harsh economy.”

The next time you hear Mike Castle whining about “government spending,” “bank bailouts” or “wasted money” just remember that Castle supported giving government money to a private entity to pad their bottom line.

Both Ted Kaufman and Tom Carper voted for the student loan overhaul, despite Sallie Mae’s presence in the state.