Delaware 2012 Politics Weekly-Jan. 6-13
Yes, if you count carefully, it’s eight days. That’s what happens when news, if you can call it that, breaks on a Friday after I post my weekly report. Which is what happened.
1. Michael, We Hardly Knew Ye.
Or perhaps we knew ye too well. Mike Brown, the Republican placeholder in the Wilmington mayoral race, abandoned the run, citing fundraising difficulties. For those who don’t speak politics, this means that he was not able to hit up the Greenville gentry for the bucks he thought he could. Meaning he wasn’t getting ‘Norman Oliver money’. A little surprising since Charles ‘Bouvier de Flanders’ Copeland was singing Brown’s praises mere weeks ago. But not too surprising, since the R’s figure they’re better off with nobody running for mayor. As opposed to next to nothing, which is what Brown represented. Brown says he’ll seek reelection to the at-large city council seat guaranteed the Rethugs. Impact: None.
2. Well, At Least It’s A Ticket. Or Something Like One.
Looks like the Rethugs will have something like a statewide ticket after all. Chad Livengood’s Sunday News-Journal piece pieces it together. The R’s are calling it something like the ‘real people ticket’, which presumably is better than the ‘just some guys’ ticket. (Bleep, Daily Kos stole my line before I could even publish this.)
3. Councilman Kevin Kelley Announces He Will Seek Wilmington’s Mayoral Office.
You can catch his announcement here via WDEL. By all reports, he’s been out there campaigning hard and knocking on doors. I’ve long believed in community policing, and I’m pleased that Kelley has embraced this proven technique, one that neither Mayors Sills nor Baker fully supported. While his vision is a little circumscribed, that, sadly, is the weakness of the current field as a whole. He’s certainly got a shot, depending on the final makeup of the field. I was impressed that he challenged Dennis P. Williams (without mentioning him) by laying out his own policing plan. While Kelley is hardly the smoothest of speakers, he strikes me and, I think, voters as someone who sincerely loves Wilmington and wants to help it flourish. A credible candidate.
4. Kevin Wade Announces Challenge to Sen. Tom Carper
Can’t seem to decide whether he’s running as a priest or a politician. Strikes me as an unctuous phony, but YMMV. Check out these excerpts from his announcement speech and decide for yourself. BTW, I particularly enjoyed the couple on the left. Watch them kiss, and watch him immediately wipe off the saliva. I live for stuff like that.
5. House Minority Leader Greg Lavelle to Challenge Sen. Michael Katz for 4th Senatorial District Seat.
Assuming that Katz runs for reelection, this will be a highly-competitive race, and one where the challenger could be viewed as the nominal favorite. However, Katz is certainly competitive. Only a small fraction of the district was represented by Lavelle prior to redistricting. Katz has combined legislative reform with what most business people would think is a favorable approach for them. Lavelle has made a career out of helping the Catholic Church in Delaware to avoid accountability for its numerous pedophile scandals. Lavelle, however, is the party’s vice-chair, and is likely a favorite of the Billionaires on the Hill. Accordingly, I think his prospects become a bit brighter if venture capitalist Romney is the Rethugs’ presidential nominee. I, for one, will be interested to see how actively Gov. Markell gets involved. If I’m not mistaken, Markell lives in the district, and Katz has been part of the reform coalition that includes Markell supporters Karen Peterson and Dave Sokola. A fun race for political junkies.
6. Rep. Dennis E. Williams Challenged By Former Campaign Manager
After two days of reflection and feedback by insiders, I am now convinced that Sean Matthews, a 25-year-old special ed teacher from P. S. DuPont, was acting completely on his own when he decided to challenge incumbent Rep. Dennis E. Williams (D-Brandywine Hundred). He sounds like someone in a hurry to start his political career and, while there’s nothing wrong with ambition, his stated reason for entering the race (Williams publicly criticized members of his caucus for opposing casino expansion) looks more like a pretext than a raison d’etre. In fact, when I read his statement announcing his candidacy on his website, I had a hard time getting past this sentence:
For the past three years, I feel our District has been underrepresented in Dover and it’s time for a change.
So underrepresented in fact that Matthews served as Williams’ campaign manager. Which raises the question as to why he was the campaign manager for someone he believed was ‘underrepresenting’ the district? I searched in vain through Matthews’ statement to see how he reconciled this seeming incongruity, but he didn’t. So, what we have is a 25-year-old guy who has been President of the Chalfonte Civic Association for 15 minutes seeking to make a splash. While there’s nothing wrong with that, and while Williams has not always been the most diligent of legislators, Williams has voted as a progressive and championed progressive causes during his time in Dover. It remains to be seen whether Democratic primary voters are willing to throw him overboard for an ambitious tabula rasa. I’m guessing ‘no’. But it’s only January.
7. State Trooper Tosses His Big Gun Into the Ring
When you have to talk about how big your gun is, it’s not that big. From my Wednesday Post-Game/Pre-Game post:
“Finally, yet another state trooper, and one seemingly with a high Asshole Quotient, has thrown his steel-toed jackboots into the political arena. One Steve Smyk will run for a newly-created House seat in Sussex County. He met with the House R Caucus in Dover yesterday. Allow me to quote this would-be ‘Honorable’ from the linked News-Journal article:
“They’re very angry that I went to a Republican side,” Smyk said of the Democrats. “[But] I don’t fit well in Democratic skin.”
“They’re afraid of me,” he said of the Democrats.
When a cop is this full of himself, the people he is sworn to protect should be justly afraid of him. He seems to like people being afraid of him, and the guy carries a gun, after all.”
A busy and fun political week. Keep ’em comin’.
Tags: Kevin Kelley; Michael Brown; Greg Lavelle; Sen. Michael Katz; Rep. Dennis E. Williams; Sean Matthews; Steve Smyk; Kevin Wade, Steve Tanzer; El Somnambulo
Can anyone tell me why National Popular Vote is an “I Hate Delaware Bill,” which is how Sigler’s Friday morning spam described it?
From the GOPspam: “The National Popular Vote bill would give Delaware’s electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, meaning your vote doesn’t count and that Presidents would be elected by big population centers like New York and Los Angeles.”
As opposed to Presidents being elected by the overrepresented wheat fields and tundra between Kansas City and Denver?
The GOPspam says the legislation, passed by the House last year, comes before committee in the Senate next Wednesday.
Cassandra had an in depth post about the Wilmington Mayoral race which is worth another look.
As a city resident I am thrilled that this race is generating so much discussion!
Mayor Sills was fully behind community policing Casandra.
A survey of Delaware voters conducted on December 21-22, 2008 showed 75% overall support for a national popular vote for President.
Support was 79% among Democrats, 69% among Republicans, and 76% among independents.
By age, support was 71% among 18-29 year olds, 70% among 30-45 year olds, 77% among 46-65 year olds, and 77% for those older than 65.
By gender, support was 81% among women and 69% among men.
Under National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would be included in the state counts and national count. The candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC would get the 270+ electoral votes from the enacting states. That majority of electoral votes guarantees the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC wins the presidency.
National Popular Vote would give a voice to the minority party voters in each state. Now their votes are counted only for the candidate they did not vote for. Now they don’t matter to their candidate.
With National Popular Vote, elections wouldn’t be about winning states. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. Every vote, everywhere would be counted equally for, and directly assist, the candidate for whom it was cast.
Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in the current handful of swing states. The political reality would be that when every vote is equal, the campaign must be run in every part of the country, including Delaware.
In the 2012 election, pundits and campaign operatives already agree that, at most, only 12 states and their voters will matter under the current winner-take-all laws (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each state) used by 48 of the 50 states. At most, 12 states will determine the election. Candidates will not care about at least 76% of the voters– voters in 19 of the 22 lowest population and medium-small states, and in 16 medium and big states like CA, GA, NY, and TX. 2012 campaigning would be even more obscenely exclusive than 2008 and 2004. In 2008, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their campaign events and ad money in just 6 states, and 98% in just 15 states (CO, FL, IN, IA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA, and WI). Over half (57%) of the events were in just 4 states (OH, FL, PA, and VA). Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. More than 85 million voters have been just spectators to the general election.
Now, policies important to the citizens of ‘flyover’ states – that include 9 of the original 13 states – are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing, too.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%,, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions possessing 132 electoral votes – 49% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
NationalPopularVote
Follow National Popular Vote on Facebook via nationalpopularvoteinc
The population of the top five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) is only 6% of the population of the United States and the population of the top 50 cities (going as far down as Arlington, TX) is only 19% of the population of the United States. Suburbs and exurbs often vote Republican.
Any candidate who ignored, for example, the 16% of Americans who live in rural areas in favor of a “big city” approach would not likely win the national popular vote.
If big cities controlled the outcome of elections, the governors and U.S. Senators would be Democratic in virtually every state with a significant city.
A nationwide presidential campaign, with every vote equal, would be run the way presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as Ohio and Florida, under the state-by-state winner-take-all methods. The big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami do not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida.
The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other campaign resources in battleground states) reflect the political reality that every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate knows. When and where every vote is equal, a campaign must be run everywhere.
Williams is enough of a dick that as long as Sean is as progressive enough (maybe a bit more?) I could see voting against him.
No he was not. He supported it more than Baker did, but he half-assed it. If Kelley is serious about implementing community policing, which study after study demonstrates is especially effective at crime prevention, and if he’s elected, he would be the first Wilmington mayor to give it a full and fair shot.
Occam, if you’re going to criticize Williams, you will have to do more than calling him a dick. Next time that you simply throw that crap out there, your prose will be Bobbitted. You have been warned…
I have no idea what Mayor Sills supported, but I do know that he certainly did not implement the kind of community policing (there is a fully fleshed out deployment plan) that a number of Wilmington citizens have been lobbying for.
Not that what Mayor Sills did or did not support means anything since he is not Mayor now and nor will he be.
YOU Casandra made a statement that Sills didnt support community policing, but in fact it was one of his campaign pledges. It was the police community who were fighting against him and that idea. Same as now.
It may or may not have been a campaign pledge, but he didn’t follow through on it. I worked on that issue a lot with Sen. Marshall, and Sills simply didn’t follow through on it.
One of Sills’ problems as mayor was that he was rarely able to turn intentions into reality. Even if there was some pushback from the police, it was not at the level where a results-oriented mayor could not have gotten this done.
And there were many police in favor of it, b/c they knew how an effective community policing model could prevent a lot of problems before they got started. I know, because we talked to a lot of them.
http://capegazette.villagesoup.com/news/story/smyk-to-run-for-new-representative-seat/198991
he’s a rigid, racist, full of himself, prick
some of his past “statements” and prior histories will certainly come back to haunt him….trust me.
not well liked on DSP either – Oh well, it will be a Dem seat
YOU Casandra made a statement that Sills didnt support community policing
I said no such thing — in fact I specifically said that I didn’t know about Sills stand on the issue. But the only thing that matters is that he didn’t do it. As for now — the person who is not in favor of community policing is Chief Szczerba. Other WPD folks I talk to at multiple levels are very interested in this model.
So you need to talk about what you know and specifically stop making up stuff that people say here. If you can’t link to it, then shut up. Else be gone.
Screw you Casandra. chief Szczerba? It shows out out of touch you really are with Wilmington. Szczerba is the reason that community policiing turned into military styled policing. Its not about making shit it up, it about having a frickin memory. I know Jim Sills was for community policiing, because I served on his campaign committee. He talked about it incessantly. Grow up.
Gee ElSom…Bob Marshall huh? Bob Marshall whose uncle Leo ran Wilmington like a dictatorship for decades.
Yeah, Bob Marshall. He did a bleepload of research on community policing, and talked to officials in venues that had community policing, before he sat down with Mayor Sills.
If Mayor Sills promoted community policing while running for a second term, it’s only b/c Marshall brought the issue to him. I give Jim Sills props for pushing it, but he never followed through.
And if all you’ve got on Marshall is who his uncle was, well, you ain’t got nothin’.
Don’t know who you are, but I know what you are. An idiot.
It appears that Smyk plans to keep hisnjob as State Tropper. The Rs in Sussex are so concerned about double dipping, so I wonder how his campaign will be received. Do we have a Democratic challenger for that seat yet?
“Community Policing” is so 1999. It will re-emerge, in some form, only when the feds throw pants loads of grant money at it again. Around 2001 programs shifted priority, things became more militant, and if any of the touchy-feely shit survived, it was under a different label.
@crunchy – previous state law – I believe EL Som quoted the case in light of the DeLuca mess, ruled that a current state trooper COULD NOT hold public office- unless Im mistaken – El SOM can you clarify??
so BOTH Rs running for seats, Representative AND Senate, are double dippers??? ROMFLMAO!!!
the Rs in Sussex are so desperate they would welcome Satan himself – whoops, they already did that!! Our Sheriff comes to mind.
While it’s a bit more complicated than that, it would certainly apply to Smyk. The Salter opinion held that one could not both make the laws AND enforce them. Salter was a state trooper, and that’s why then-Gov. Carper requested a Supreme Court opinion. Don’t know whether Lopez’ position is considered an ‘enforcement’ position, so he might be OK, even though it’d make him a double-dipper.
Of course, since it was an advisory opinion, and since neither the AG nor the Governor have yet challenged DeLuca’s clear violation of state law, maybe Smyk thinks he can get away with it, just like DeLuca so far has. You never know, he might be right. But it’s unconstitutional.
For a delightful and thought-provoking read on this entire situation, might I suggest the following:
http://delawareliberal.net//2011/12/14/did-tony-deluca-resign-from-the-state-senate-and-not-even-know-it/
I did read it El SOM – thats why I remembered it and thougt of you – I just could not bring up that exact thread….
thanks for the bail out!! you are the best 🙂
So, what Smyck to do now?? if the Supreme OCurt has ruled will his candidacy be in question> or will he lose his job? how does that work. He has enought years to retire, does he run for office see if he gets elected then retire??
hmmm – thinking Sunday for sure – I dont want him in my District representing me – I have personally heard to much of his shit, didnt like it then, dont like it now – he wont get my vote for LOTS of reasons!!
According to the opinion, and I suggest you read it as it is both well-written and concise, upon election, Smyk will have been deemed to have resigned from his state trooper job. Newly-elected legislators go on the payroll right after the election, so he effectively will have retired. Unless he chooses to ignore/flout the law, as DeLuca has done.
I almost hope that he does it, since neither the Governor nor the AG have thus far lifted a finger to challenge DeLuca’s illegal occupation of both offices. At some point, they will almost have to wake up and do something since this is not going away.
I know Jim Sills was for community policiing, because I served on his campaign committee.
Well no wonder Sills couldn’t get re-elected dogcatcher.