Today’s Barrish Postmortem of DEGOP Death – Not Horrible

Filed in National by on October 3, 2010

The late (not so) great DE GOP is laid to rest by Cris Barrish in Today’s News Journal. While Barrish includes the obligatory few “They might come back..” sentiments in his obituary, that bit seems tacked by Vance Phillips who wants to be seen as everyone’s pal.

In the end, the plain facts of the story leave only one conclusion: the DE GOP is done as a viable statewide party.

From now on it is all about the Democratic primary.

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Jason330 is a deep cover double agent working for the GOP. Don't tell anybody.

Comments (24)

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  1. jason330 says:

    A bit of ironic synchronicity:

    “On election night, the contrast between the Castle and O’Donnell camps was vivid. Castle’s supporters on the Wilmington riverfront wore preppy clothes, but at the Dover Elks Lodge where O’Donnell’s party was held, T-shirts and blue jeans were the norm.

    “I heard one comment that we’re not going to have the $5,000-a-head fundraisers,” Grossman said. “It will be more like beef and beers at the Elks Lodge.”

    Those poor, dumb, gullible O’Donnell supporters.

  2. delacrat says:

    C O’D is lowering the bar for Chris Coons.

    But she did rid us of The Moderate One.

    So I’m not sure how I feel about C O’D.

  3. Brandywine Pete says:

    The three best quotes;

    “leaders won’t budge from an approach that does not resonate with ordinary people”

    “The Republican Party lost its way,” he said, “when we continued to be perceived as the party of the blue bloods and not relevant to the blue collar.”

    “There’s no new ideas,” Jackson said. “Everything has been the way the Greenville crowd wanted. It’s a sorry group that can’t count, can’t recruit and can’t handle competition from within. It’s been that way for many years and election cycles.”

    The Tea Party is not a conservative movement, it is a populist movement. Remember the alliance of the future from a few weeks before? Did you forget?

  4. anon says:

    “There’s no new ideas,” Jackson said. “Everything has been the way the Greenville crowd wanted.

    It’s like Mike Protack’s best dream, except Protack isn’t in it.

  5. cassandra m says:

    This is less about the death of the GOP, I think, than it is about the death of its more rational elements — those elements with a genuine interest in governing, not just in managing a celebrity profile. Far all of the infighting between the NCCo and SL parts of Delaware, it is true that they are losing registrations here. This fight is between the more ideologically moderate who see the compromises they have to make to get Democratic votes (in a state that is clearly Blue) and the purists who seem to think that ideological purity will produce Democratic votes by magic.

    What interests me about this is whether Delaware’s political culture will change much after this. There is alot of value given to moderation and the ability to work AND play together here. It seems to me that the moderate GOP has probably its last opportunity to make its case and to reassert itself and show the rest of the country how it is done. The thing is, though, that they’ll have to hive off a fair number of moderate Dems to do it here. I doubt that there is any GOP leadership here who will take on these idiot teabaggers, really.

  6. anon says:

    Teabaggers are more irrational, yes. But more extreme? I don’t think so.

    Teabaggers and moderate Republicans have the same agenda and the same platform.

    The thing about moderate Republicans, they all support the mainstream Republican platform, which is currently represented by the Paul Ryan plan (an undeniably extremist plan). If you haven’t disavowed the Ryan plan, you are not a moderate.

    So O’Donnell’s victory wasn’t a victory for new ideas; it was just a victory for new personnel with the same ideas.

  7. Dana Garrett says:

    I think the premise of Barrish’s article is mistaken. The REAL battle–at the level of electoral politics–isn’t about whose interests the DE GOP will serve: the blue bloods or the blue collars. Rather, it’s about who is now electable enough to represent the interests of the the blue bloods. Let’s face it, BOTH Urquhart and O’Donnell would represent the interests of the blue bloods in DC. The only thing that has essentially changed is where the locus of control has shifted in the DE GOP. It’s no longer Greenville; it’s Sussex County.

    Urquhart and O’Donnell don’t have the interests of the blue collars at heart any more than Mike Castle did. It’s comical to think otherwise.

  8. Geezer says:

    “The Tea Party is not a conservative movement, it is a populist movement.”

    The two descriptions are not mutually exclusive.

  9. Publius says:

    Two quick points:

    1. Uhh, as I recall, it was just two years ago that democrats were trumpeting the death of the national republican party. Now the GOP stands poised to take back the House, perhaps the Senate, and Obama’s approval ratings are lower than GW’s were at this point in his presidency.

    2. The “death” of the GOP in Delaware can really be attributed to two things: (i) the dramatic downsizing of DuPont, which at one point 20 years ago employed 28,000 or so employees in this state and now employs less than 10,000; and (ii) the success of Pete DuPont, Mike Castle and republican policies and principles in the late 70s and 80s–while states like PA, NJ and MD have seen their cost of living soar, Delaware maintained a lower cost of living, leading to a substantial influx of NJ’s, NY’s and PA’s, which has transformed the electorate as DuPont downsized. In other words, it’s the demographics more than anything else.

  10. Mike Matthews says:

    I’m with Dana. While the majority of those who went AGAINST the establishment were — perhaps — blue collars, there’s no way in hell Urquhart and O’Donnell go to Washington to represent them. They may go to represent their ass-backwards conservative social values, but not what’s in their best economic interest. This is where the Dems have failed to make any meaningful inroads with this bunch. Then again,debating these people on topics like abortion, teh gay, and immigration, is damn-near migraine inducing!

  11. AGREED that any GOP elected to serve in DC will be serving at the behest of the party hierarchy. O’Donnell is drooling at the shot to be the lame-duck session filibuster spoiler of DEM agenda and isn’t afraid to say so. She must be fancying herself a millionaire anyway, now that her coffers are up near 3M. Glen Urquhart was only less elite than Michele Rollins by a power of ten in the bank account tally.

    There has always been a terrific tension between the northern and southern poles of DE for the GOP not to mention DE DEMs (think Adams or Vaughn and a few others below the canal).

    The biggest difference for the DE GOP primary was probably Beck and his non-political Restoring Honor gig on the Mall that whipped up the “Patriots” and helped O’Donnell get funding (by the way, the WNJ covered the shit out of that one but yesterday….crickets? – Maybe they are saving up for the Comedy Central show).

  12. anon says:

    Obama’s approval ratings are lower than GW’s were at this point in his presidency.

    A little misleading… Bush’s approval spiked with 9/11 then slid right back down. Bush was re-elected with the same approval ratings Obama has now.

  13. Belinsky says:

    GOP lost Delaware by its national rightward drift. Ted Kaufman pointed this out years ago. Barrish omitted this obvious cause.

  14. PSB says:

    Barrish also missed the fact that many moderate Republicans switched parties in 2008 to help Jack Markell win the Democratic Party primary. Without their return, the DE GOP shifted significantly right-ward, and Ross and Castle ignored this. As a result, the DE GOP shifted significant below the canal..

    If DE has an open primary, COD likely would have lost, but the closed primary with the not-yet-returned moderates prevented the NCCo Republicans from getting Castle annointed.

  15. jason330 says:

    Great comments. I read it hastily this morning and have to admit that I missed the failure of the article to note that (if elected) O’Donnell and Urkel will be working for the same well heeled republican constituency that Republicans always work for.

  16. Anon Knows Nothing says:

    The Delaware GOP has spent more energy screwing fellow GOP members it deemed unworthy and propped up those who are clearly unelectable and generally without principle. Every GOP leader at every level should resign today.

    Good old Anon who is clearly a GOP hack forgets Protack is the only member of the GOP who gives a rat’s ass about working class people. The rest of the GOP treats all of us as place settings at a dinner table to be used and thrown away. I challenge the uninformed Anon to name one issue or policy Protack does not have some rational proposal. Of course Anon will have zip, it is always easier to be a shill for the GOP politburo.

    I am still not crazy about Protack’s union beliefs and universal health care beliefs but he gets it with working class people, the rest of the GOP does not.

    The Markell/carney race did have some people switch (4000) or so and with that group Markell won, otherwise Carney would have won. Those who switched had nothing to so with any shift in the party. While those people voted with their feet, those south of the canal did nothing until the Tea Party tide gave them some hope to throw the bums out.

    Barrish could have written 200 pages on the failures of the Delaware GOP.

    Geezer makes a good point as populist can be conservative and vice versa if you have a person believes in both movements. Near as i can tell only one GOP potential candidate does. The guy you all hate but the only one who ‘gets it’.

  17. I really fail to see the difference between “moderate” Republicans and the far right Republicans we see now. The moderates haven’t run the Republican party since the 80s so modern-day moderate Republicans were ones that made noise about voting with Democrats but voting with the Republicans anyway.

  18. cassandra m says:

    Uhh, as I recall, it was just two years ago that democrats were trumpeting the death of the national republican party.

    You could see the teabaggers as the headless chicken running around the yard, actually.

  19. anonone says:

    “…that democrats were trumpeting the death of the national republican party.”

    That was mostly true until Obomba decided to give them mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and his favorite “bipartisanship pills.”

  20. Delbert says:

    I think the Greenville crew might end up as the “headless chicken”. I see the future of the Delaware GOP as similar to those in the southern red states, after the Chateau Country crowd gets booted. And they WILL get booted if the downstate rank & file stay fired up. A C O’D election would ensure that. The rise of Colin Bonini into statewide elected offices will also play a part. Being out of Dover he could be a peace broker.

  21. anon says:

    The rise of Colin Bonini into statewide elected offices will also play a part.

    Speaking of chickens, you are counting them a little prematurely.

    If Delaware Repubs are routed as thoroughly as it looks, are the downstate teabagz going to keep sending crazier and crazier wingnuts? Or will they eventually figure out they need to get behind somebody electable?

  22. Anon Knows Nothing says:

    The old Delaware GOP is no more, gone like a fart in the wind.

    The next race will tell the extent of the mass extermination of the has been pseudo elites who have run the GOP in to a ditch. If these hacks botch the NCC President race, the next GOP convention will look like Hiroshima.

    The ice pick the Politburo has been sticking in some GOP candidates will be turned on them and the losses by those in the past will be like prison time in the hood, street cred.

    Bye Bye Priscilla. Bye Bye Forsten. Bye bye Houseal. Bye Bye Wimer.

  23. Belinsky says:

    Jeez, if Forsten and Houseal aren’t conservative enough for these people, we’re really looking at a Taliban takeover.

    I think Ted Kaufman’s right. It wasn’t the Greenville Gang that “ran the GOP into a ditch.” It was these people:

    http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/10/demint_sexually_active_unmarried_women_and_gay_teachers_should_be_barred_from_classrooms.php

  24. Geezer says:

    “Obama’s approval ratings are lower than GW’s were at this point in his presidency.”

    And higher than Reagan’s or Clinton’s. Pick enough cherries and your fingers turn red.

    “while states like PA, NJ and MD have seen their cost of living soar, Delaware maintained a lower cost of living, leading to a substantial influx of NJ’s, NY’s and PA’s, which has transformed the electorate as DuPont downsized.”

    I’m going to demand some evidence of your contention. I don’t believe the cost of living “soared” in any of those states. They have higher property taxes than Delaware, and much lower income taxes. Retirees with property but not much income are therefore much better off in Delaware.

    If you’re looking for a demographic explanation, Delaware’s 20% African-American population might be a better fit.