Delaware’s enduring love affair with incumbents is being undermined this election season by a combination of term limits for governor and political ambition. Together they are conspiring to create three openings for statewide office.
Voters to their dismay actually are going to have to make new choices.
The vacancy rate has not been so high since 1992, although that reference is somewhat misleading because it was the year Mike Castle and Tom Carper swapped jobs. Castle, the Republican governor, went to Congress as the lone Delaware member in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Carper, the Democratic congressman, went to Woodburn, the governor’s house in Dover.
Technically Castle and Carper were not running as incumbents, but only technically. It was like demoting Pluto for the people who believe once a planet, always a planet. Nothing really changed, did it?
True to form, there will be no vacancy signs in the three-member congressional delegation in 2008. Unless Democrat Joe Biden gets a tap on the shoulder from Barack Obama, he will be sauntering toward a state record-setting seventh term in the U.S. Senate, with Castle on track for a record ninth term in the House. Carper, now the other senator, is not up this year.
Biden’s Republican opponent is Christine O’Donnell, a 2006 write-in candidate whose claim to fame was her fetching road signs. From a race with Obama and Hillary Clinton to O’Donnell? Biden’s biggest challenge will be keeping a straight face.
Castle is getting a free pass from the Democrats, who have three forgettable candidates running in a primary for the congressional nomination. Collectively they have about $10,000 in campaign money, which will not help anyone remember them, not with Castle sitting on $1.5 million.
Castle’s real race is for the history books. Re-election ties him with Carper for 12 statewide wins, the Delaware record. Castle got to this point as lieutenant governor, governor and congressman. Carper did it as treasurer, congressman, governor and senator. Carper loves this record. He is probably the only politician in America who thinks there is a downside to six-year Senate terms.
The openings on the ballot come courtesy of the state constitution, which insists Democrat Ruth Ann Minner depart from the governor’s office after two terms.
Politicians adore a vacuum. It means they can move up.
This one has pulled in the lieutenant governor and the state treasurer to run for governor, the insurance commissioner and the state Senate minority leader to run for lieutenant governor, and the Sussex County recorder of deeds to run for insurance commissioner. Those are just the candidates who currently have offices. An ex-judge and assorted others also are in the mix.
It has led to the most spectacular primary in the state’s political history, a multimillion-dollar knockdown between Lt. Gov. John Carney and Treasurer Jack Markell for the Democratic nomination for governor. The primary has a good chance to be winner-take-all because of the growing dominance of the Democratic Party here.
The Republicans have an endorsed candidate in retired Judge Bill Lee, a repeat candidate who has a knack for close finishes in gubernatorial races, if only he could figure out how to get on the winning side of them. Lee has a nuisance primary, the biennial Mike Protack-attack for governor, senator, whatever. Protack is an airline pilot who has yet to figure out that he was grounded politically a long time ago.
With all of the flurry, for the first time in a generation since Republican Pete du Pont was elected in 1976, there is no clear front-runner for governor. (Not you, Protack.)
For lieutenant governor, there is a one-on-one showdown between Matt Denn, the Democratic insurance commissioner, and Charlie Copeland, the state Senate’s Republican minority leader. This one should come with a warning: Ambition alert! It is not really a contest for lieutenant governor but for next governor.
Two of the last three governors – Castle and Minner – were previously lieutenant governors, and Carney is trying to make it three out of four. Politicians notice things like that.
Even the race for insurance commissioner is a mishmash with three Democrats fighting for the chance to run against John Brady, a Republican who is a Sussex County row officer and worked as a House attorney in the General Assembly in Dover. The muddled Democratic field gives the Republicans a rare shot to capture a statewide office.
That would be something. In the modern world of statewide politics, a Republican victory is usually every bit as scarce as an open seat.
*****
This column is the last from Delaware Grapevine. The operation has lasted for six years, as long as it can under precarious financial circumstances.
It has been a pleasure to write. In the words of Andre Agassi, the great tennis player: “To do something you love is a luxury of life. And to do something you love and have it appreciated is overwhelming.”
|
|
|
Delaware’s enduring love affair with incumbents is being undermined this election season by a combination of term limits for governor and political ambition. Together they are conspiring to create three openings for statewide office.
Voters to their dismay actually are going to have to make new choices.
The vacancy rate has not been so high since 1992, although that reference is somewhat misleading because it was the year Mike Castle and Tom Carper swapped jobs. Castle, the Republican governor, went to Congress as the lone Delaware member in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Carper, the Democratic congressman, went to Woodburn, the governor’s house in Dover.
Technically Castle and Carper were not running as incumbents, but only technically. It was like demoting Pluto for the people who believe once a planet, always a planet. Nothing really changed, did it?
True to form, there will be no vacancy signs in the three-member congressional delegation in 2008. Unless Democrat Joe Biden gets a tap on the shoulder from Barack Obama, he will be sauntering toward a state record-setting seventh term in the U.S. Senate, with Castle on track for a record ninth term in the House. Carper, now the other senator, is not up this year.
Biden’s Republican opponent is Christine O’Donnell, a 2006 write-in candidate whose claim to fame was her fetching road signs. From a race with Obama and Hillary Clinton to O’Donnell? Biden’s biggest challenge will be keeping a straight face.
Castle is getting a free pass from the Democrats, who have three forgettable candidates running in a primary for the congressional nomination. Collectively they have about $10,000 in campaign money, which will not help anyone remember them, not with Castle sitting on $1.5 million.
Castle’s real race is for the history books. Re-election ties him with Carper for 12 statewide wins, the Delaware record. Castle got to this point as lieutenant governor, governor and congressman. Carper did it as treasurer, congressman, governor and senator. Carper loves this record. He is probably the only politician in America who thinks there is a downside to six-year Senate terms.
The openings on the ballot come courtesy of the state constitution, which insists Democrat Ruth Ann Minner depart from the governor’s office after two terms.
Politicians adore a vacuum. It means they can move up.
This one has pulled in the lieutenant governor and the state treasurer to run for governor, the insurance commissioner and the state Senate minority leader to run for lieutenant governor, and the Sussex County recorder of deeds to run for insurance commissioner. Those are just the candidates who currently have offices. An ex-judge and assorted others also are in the mix.
It has led to the most spectacular primary in the state’s political history, a multimillion-dollar knockdown between Lt. Gov. John Carney and Treasurer Jack Markell for the Democratic nomination for governor. The primary has a good chance to be winner-take-all because of the growing dominance of the Democratic Party here.
The Republicans have an endorsed candidate in retired Judge Bill Lee, a repeat candidate who has a knack for close finishes in gubernatorial races, if only he could figure out how to get on the winning side of them. Lee has a nuisance primary, the biennial Mike Protack-attack for governor, senator, whatever. Protack is an airline pilot who has yet to figure out that he was grounded politically a long time ago.
With all of the flurry, for the first time in a generation since Republican Pete du Pont was elected in 1976, there is no clear front-runner for governor. (Not you, Protack.)
For lieutenant governor, there is a one-on-one showdown between Matt Denn, the Democratic insurance commissioner, and Charlie Copeland, the state Senate’s Republican minority leader. This one should come with a warning: Ambition alert! It is not really a contest for lieutenant governor but for next governor.
Two of the last three governors – Castle and Minner – were previously lieutenant governors, and Carney is trying to make it three out of four. Politicians notice things like that.
Even the race for insurance commissioner is a mishmash with three Democrats fighting for the chance to run against John Brady, a Republican who is a Sussex County row officer and worked as a House attorney in the General Assembly in Dover. The muddled Democratic field gives the Republicans a rare shot to capture a statewide office.
That would be something. In the modern world of statewide politics, a Republican victory is usually every bit as scarce as an open seat.
*****
This column is the last from Delaware Grapevine. The operation has lasted for six years, as long as it can under precarious financial circumstances.
It has been a pleasure to write. In the words of Andre Agassi, the great tennis player: “To do something you love is a luxury of life. And to do something you love and have it appreciated is overwhelming.”
