DelawareLiberal.Net

A North Carolina Blog Party

Now this is pretty cool.

State Democratic Chairman Jerry Meek has turned to the Web to get names of someone who can beat Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole in 2008. The plea is part gesture to the power of political blogs and part acknowledgment that he has no strong candidate in sight.“Who Should I Recruit to Defeat Dole?” Meek asked in a Saturday posting, which in three days has drawn almost 100 replies in a lively conversation with suggestions ranging from Gov. Mike Easley to former UNC-Chapel Hill basketball coach Dean Smith to Elizabeth Edwards.

Meek writes that Dole may not seek re-election because she is battered by her unsuccessful effort to keep the U.S. Senate in Republican hands.

“But even if she does run, we can beat her,” Meek writes. “So, who should I recruit to take her on? Don’t limit yourself to politicians. Are there good business people or community leaders out there who share our vision and can win?”

– Via MyDD by Matt Stoller
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I bolded that last sentence because it reminded me that we tend to think too “inside the box” at times when thinking about who should run for what. Let’s be sure to think about the community activists and and progressive business and civic leaders when we are thinking about possible candidates.

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.

Google those two words and you get 1,730,000 hits.

While Joe Biden has been talking about something like this for over a year, the partition of Iraq is begining to get some serious consideration. This Slate article by Timothy Noah rounds up the thinking of top pro-partition people.

UPDATE: I cross posted this on kos along with the NJ article about the R’s firing the entire paid staff. It has some interesting 2008 predictions. Here is a link if you want to check it out.

UPDATE II: Mike M has a less positive take on Dean’s 50 state strategy.

Dean’s 50 state strategy is not getting the credit it deserves in the DC chattering classes. But so what, check out this bellweather of success. While the Delaware Republican party is folding its tent and has fired its entire paid staff, the Delaware Dems are already looking toward the next election.

This is from the online newsletter:

We need your help — this is NOT the end…
Election Day 2006 has passed, but the work at the Delaware Democratic Party is really just beginning.

As always, we need you in order for us to succeed. Please continue to help us as much in off years as you do during election cycles.

I drafted my team. It is the “lame ducks on the pond” with a couple of favorites for good measure.

Fantasy Congress

Join the “Delabloggers” league the password is blogaway.

UPDATE III: As if the DE GOP could even fit more egg on its face, campaign finance reports will show that they have plenty of money and that this “We only have enough to take us through Janauary…” spin is complete bullshit.   This firing is all about electoral failure and nothing else.  The DE GOP simply cannot get an honest word out.  They are hard wired to lie, even when the truth is staring them in the face.

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The Executive Director of the Republican Party of Delaware is out of a job, [“axed” was the term they used on the air] as the state committee makes cutbacks due to financial concerns.

With payroll making up 64% of expenses, Executive Director Dave Crossan and two other employees are being let go.

GOP Chair Terry Strine says the party doesn’t have enough money to continue at its current operating level past mid-January.

Strine says the Republican National Committee didn’t give any money to Delaware during this past campaign season, and he says this move will keep the party solvent.

According to Strine, the party will operate with one full time staffer, and hopes to have enough money to start hiring for the 2008 campaign next summer.
– WDEL h/t MOT NEWBIE

Don’t cry for Dave Argentina! The RNC has a great safety net its thugs and henchmen.

UPDATE II: Keep you eye on Joe M’s Merit Bound Alley for Karen Peterson WRITE IN RESULTS today.

UPDATE: Ting was great on the drive time news this morning. To the question “what did he learn by running?” he replied. “Dont run against someon who has won 11 straight elections and if people tell you what a great candidate you are going to be and how everyon if goingto vote for you say ‘show me the money’.”

On a RELATED NOTE: When does Castle get some of the blame?

Castle is sitting on a million bucks, barely did anything to help any Republican candidates AND has worked for ten years to blurr the line between Republicans and Democrats. – I’m not surprised that voters are starting to feel that the the very idea of a Delaware Republican party is irrelevant.

The old Spin: “Democrats are really Republicans, We WON!!” Didn’t take hold so Rove has faxed his new talking points around the country.

The new spin would be kind of funny it were not so f’ed up and cynical. Sean Hannity says that “We are on the verge of victory in Iraq.” I know. Crazy. Anyway, according to Hannity we are just weeks if not days from winning in Iraq BUT the Democrats will not let Bush “finish the job.” Instead we are gong to “cut and run.”

This is familary territory for America’s permanent minority party. And a, sadly predictable, return to the “stabbed in the back narrative” which has been used like a balm by conservatives throught American history.

That spin is almost impossible to refute since it is soooo whacked. I hope Allan Loudell is mortified to be on the station of that evil freak, Hannity.

American elections can either be “fixed” or “not fixed”. The outcome can either be “Democrats win” or “Republicans Win”. Therefor there are four possible outcomes to any election and three of those outcomes are “bad” for America as this graphic explains.

History shows us that the possible outcomes for “fixed” elections are “bad” and “very bad”.

Please note that the possible outcomes for the “not fixed” elections are “Good” and “less bad”. So striving for clean elections in which people trust the outcomes to be a fair representation of the votes cast should be a non-partisan issue that we can all agree to work toward in peace and harmony.

In response to my comment that it is easy to be a conspiracy theorist when it comes to the News Journal, Al said in part:

As for conspiracies, I sat in editorial meetings for years and never heard any discussion of, for example, whose sign would be chosen to illustrate such a story. It simply never came up for discussion. Unconscious bias? Could be. But in all honesty I never heard anyone ever say anything about boosting or screwing any candidate or party.

I agree that there is probably no conscious conservative bias in the mass media – HOWEVER…

they have been so beaten up and abused by the Hube’s of the world for being liberal that they go out of thier way to prove that they are conservative. This the nconscious bias that effects all Mass media today.

Case in point: Two TIME magazine covers. See if you can discern the bias.

Comment Rescue Bonus Round: This was just too good to let languish in the sub-sub-sub basement.

Christine O’Donnell is a Democrat subversive infiltrator, directed by Howard Dean and funded by George Soros. Her top secret mission is twofold: first to siphon off the ultraconservative every-sperm-is-sacred votes from GOP candidates and thereby inflate the margin of victory for Dems; secondly to drive up the Dem turnout by posing as the avatar of pure concentrated GOP evil to be vigorously struggled against. Mission accomplished, agent O’Donnell. – G REX

A delawareliberal Public Service Announcement:

Yes, it appears that Chad Conrad Castagana, the man “suspected of mailing more than a dozen threatening letters containing white powder to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Jon Stewart and other high-profile figures,” was a conservative and a commenter on conservative blogs. Unless there are two Chad Castaganas.

Does this mean all wingnut commenters on blogs are psychos?

No. However – I think it does mean that is you become so disconnected from reality that people like Sean Hannity and Rick Jensen begin to make sense to you you should not take it lightly.

Please seek qualified psychological help before you end up like Mr. Castaganas.

Via – Billmon