DelawareLiberal.Net

Tonight the New Castle County Democratic Executive Committee unanimously passed this resolution in support of DNC Chairman Howard Dean.

Resolution of Support for
Chairman Howard Dean, M.D.

Whereas the New Castle County Executive Committee recognizes the leadership of DNC Chairman Howard Dean in our success in the 2006 elections and,

Whereas the New Castle County Executive Committee wishes to express our support of and thanks to DNC Chairman Howard Dean, now be it

Resolved that: The New Castle County Executive Committee wholeheartedly endorses and supports Chairman Howard Dean and his 50-state-strategy. Further, the Committee members are looking forward to the continuance of Chairman Dean’s leadership and victory in 2008 under that leadership.

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This is a timely tip of the hat to Dean, who’s “50 State Strategy” allowed the Democrats take over control of both the House and Senate. As I reported here, the real impact of the “50 State Strategy” will be felt here in Delaware for years to come.

Even conservative Republicans commenters at Redstate.com have commented on how “50 State Strategy” effectively “destroyed the Republican Party in Delaware.”

…In August, Howard Dean sent $100,000 to lowly Delaware as part of his “50 State Strategy.” Delaware is a State that has gone for the Democratic Candidate for the past four Presidential elections. All pundits agree Delaware is a solidly Blue state.

The Delaware Republicans were putting up the most experienced prosecutor, with a 6-1 favorability, as their candidate for attorney general. The Democrats ran Beau Biden, who’s never prosecuted a single criminal case in Delaware. In the final weeks of the campaign, the Republican Ferris Wharton, and two Republican state senate (farm team) candidates held leads in the polls. That all changed however, in the final 72 hours of the campaign.

Turns out, the Democrats used the DNC’s $100,000 to pay for 2 field representatives who engineered the largest GOTV effort the Democrats had ever put forth in Delaware’s history. The state party used that money to rent 36 vans for union workers and paid college students to go door to door and drag Democrats to the polls and pull the blue lever. It provided the difference as Beau Biden won by a few percentage points. Both of the Republicans hoped-for farm team candidates lost badly as well. While Dean’s strategy may have seemed initially to be a poor use of limited resources, it effectively destroyed the Republican Party in Delaware.

Why is the GOP losing “values” voters? Because people of faith have clued into the fact that being opposed to abortion and same sex marriage and being for torture, bombing random countries and invading them for the hell of it does not make you a Christian.

An important new exit poll, commissioned by Faith in Public Life and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, and conducted by Zogby International, now shows why that shift [41% of protestant evangelical voters and 55% of Catholic voters voting for Democrats] occurred. The poll, released at a press conference today, offers more explanation of the substantial shift in religious voters in the midterm elections. Complete results are available from Faith in Public Life.

*When Catholics were asked to name the most important value guiding their vote, 67% chose “a commitment to the common good – the good of all, not just the few,” while 22% chose “opposing policies such as legal abortion, gay marriage, and embryonic stem cell research.” – Sojourners

When John Kowalko was ready to head back to his home on election night one of the last voters voting walked deliberately toward him. After meeting many voters on the campaign trail John sized up the man holding a baby as “probably a Republican.”

The man held out his hand to John and said, “I’ve been voting for twenty twelve years and you are the first Democrat I’ve ever voted for.”

The story of how John Kowalko, a machinist by trade, got to that moment is a story of how politics in American can and should be done. It is a story of a man who believed in his ability to work hard and make a difference more than he believed the voices all around him trying to tell him what is and what is not possible.

Recently I spoke with John and asked a few questions about his campaign with an eye toward trying to find out what other Democratic challengers could learn from his experiences.

Check back here tomorrow for the interview.

Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depository of the public interests.

In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves. Call them, therefore, Liberals and Serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, Whigs and Tories, Republicans and Federalists, Aristocrats and Democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same parties still, and pursue the same object. The last appellation of Aristocrats and Democrats is the true one expressing the essence of all.
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The above quote is from this Jonathan Schwarz post on how Carper, Biden and Castle (the government) and Delmarva Broadcasting and The News Journal (the corporate media) self-consciously see themselves as a governing elite that runs things hand in hand.

While Schwarz does not call out our congressional delegation and our local media by name – it is clear to any casual observer that these folks consider themselves the Aristocrats Jefferson refers to.  This is what was so unsettling about Beau Biden’s campaign for AG and this is what is so refreshing about John Kowlako’s win.   While the Biden’s may or may not hit the right populist notes from time to time, it is queeze inducing to know that we are ruled by an artisocratic politcal class.

People who say that there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats have never heard of Jim Webb.

Manufacturing jobs are disappearing. Many earned pension programs have collapsed in the wake of corporate “reorganization.” And workers’ ability to negotiate their futures has been eviscerated by the twin threats of modern corporate America: If they complain too loudly, their jobs might either be outsourced overseas or given to illegal immigrants.

This ever-widening divide is too often ignored or downplayed by its beneficiaries. A sense of entitlement has set in among elites, bordering on hubris. When I raised this issue with corporate leaders during the recent political campaign, I was met repeatedly with denials, and, from some, an overt lack of concern for those who are falling behind. A troubling arrogance is in the air among the nation’s most fortunate. Some shrug off large-scale economic and social dislocations as the inevitable byproducts of the “rough road of capitalism.” Others claim that it’s the fault of the worker or the public education system, that the average American is simply not up to the international challenge, that our education system fails us, or that our workers have become spoiled by old notions of corporate paternalism.

Some conservative eh?

What does this mean for us. Delaware has a corporatist Congressional delegation that brazenly puts corporate interests ahead of the interests of every other Delawarean. Caper and Biden shamlessly abet coporations is making and carrying out the threats against workers that Webb mentions.

If the Democratic party stands for anything, Joe Biden and Tom Carper need serious primary challengers. These challengers should be in the race, not to win the seat, but to win Biden and Carper away from the notion that they serve Delaware’s fortune 500 companies.

The power of incumbency is too strong and we should primary them knowing that we will loose at the polls. We should primary them with the knowledge that, if only for a few weeks, we can challenge them on their votes and their casual assumptions that they owe the top 1% of Delawareans their future votes in Congress.

The primary challenge begins today.