Delaware Political Weekly: February 4-10, 2012

1. Oops 1.

Paul Clark decided to treat his beloved county employees to a series of ice cream socials, and pay for them through campaign funds. Oh, and he sent out notices to these campaign-sponsored events  through…New Castle County e-mail. From the News-Journal story:

New Castle County Executive Paul Clark used $1,250 of his campaign funds to give Mr. Softee Ice Cream to county employees during a hot spell in August.The “Ice Cream Days” on Aug. 24, Aug. 25 and Aug. 26 were held on county property during the employees’ working hours. A Sept. 16 event, for county library employees, was held at a hotel. Clark used the county’s email system to notify the employees about the events.

Delaware’s Elections Commissioner, Elaine Manlove, said the expense apparently violated the state campaign-finance law. Campaign funds shouldn’t be used for employee-appreciation events by elected officials, she said.

Hard to tell whether it was arrogance, ignorance of the law, or just not caring about the law. But politicians know, or should know, that they can’t do this. There’s a reason why the liquor stores are closed on election day–so that politicians cannot buy votes via booze. Will we have to ban ice cream sales as well?

2. Oops 2.

Missed this one last week, but someone named Ben Mobley, who is running for Insurance Commissioner on the R side, failed to file his campaign finance report. Celia Cohen, who still covers Rethug politics, at least New Castle County-style, has what passes for the story here. BTW, Mobley is an ‘investment advisor’ at Morgan Stanley. Don’t they have to know some legal thingies? Maybe it’s other legal thingies…  Doesn’t matter. He will not be our next IC. But, if you can stomach it, here is Ben Mobley with an ever-smarmier Charlie ‘Bouvier de Flandres’ Copeland channeling his inner Mitt Romney. FWIW, I like Mobley a lot better in this clip than Copeland. Just look at the studied casualness of Copeland’s attire.

3. Yet Another Hard-To-Believe Wilmington Candidacy.

Whenever someone unfamiliar to me files for office, I google the name. I always get a frisson of excitement when I see a new and unfamiliar name. Such was the case when one Timothy J. Meades, Sr. became the first candidate to file for the 3rd Senatorial District seat currently held by Bob Marshall. And then I googled him. You know that there’s a back story that has nothing to do with political vision/qualifications when virtually the entire first page is given over to court decisions and legal briefs. Which was the case with Meades. Turns out that Meades was fired from his supervisory position at the Wilmington Housing Authority in May of 2001 for alleged mishandling of WHA funds and misappropriation of WHA property. Meades filed an appeal to his termination, an appeal that was rejected by an arbitrator, and then initiated litigation alleging defamation of character by the WHA. After years of litigation, mostly pro se on Meades’ part, the State Supreme Court held that the facts leading to Meades’ termination were not in dispute and that his final appeal was denied. To quote from the decision:

“…Meades was afforded the opportunity through discovery to produce evidence that WHA had abused its conditional privilege. The Superior Court’s decision concluding that Meades’ effort was unsuccessful and that summary judgment should be granted against him is amply supported by the record and is free from legal error.”

In other words, the facts presented on the first day turned out to be the facts accepted by the Court on the last day.

Now, look. I understand that litigating something like this is not, nor should it be, a disqualifying offense for public service. Even though Meades was fired for allowing contractors onto an unsupervised WHA site, thus enabling them to take WHA property with neither permission nor payment.

But when you literally can’t find anything else that suggests that this person is at least qualified for public service, you, or in this case, me, just have to shake your/my head.

C’mon, Wilmington, you can do better than this. Can’t you?

4. Mitch Crane Files.

There was, of course, no suspense, but our next Insurance Commissioner is officially in the race. His website rocks, BTW.  Will be nice to have grownups back in charge at the IC’s office come November, or more accurately, Jan. 2013.

5. Filings, We Have Filings.

First, an open plea to the New Castle County Department of Elections. Been two weeks now, can you PUH-LEEZE correct the misspelling of Bryan Townsend’s first name? Who do you think you are, the State Auditor’s Office?

One of Delaware’s biggest political sellouts, Patti Blevins, has filed for reelection in the Seventh Senatorial District. Her piggish proclivities during redistricting once again led to her district becoming more Democratic while her neighbor’s district, Dave Sokola’s, gained an incumbent Republican senator. The time is ripe for the right kind of D challenger to take on this long-term incumbent. R’s can’t do it, district’s too Democratic. But the right D might have a shot.

Four incumbent D representatives have also filed for reelection: Debra Heffernan (6th), Dennis E. Williams (10th),  Michael Mulrooney (17th), and Earl Jaques (27th). I generally feel pretty comfortable with any and all of the four. YMMV.

Still nothing from Kent or Sussex Counties, but that’s understandable. It’s perhaps a lesser known celebration than its Pennsylvania counterpart, but every Feb. 2, the respective counties celebrate ‘Roadkill Day’. If a muskrat sees its shadow and gets run over by a Perdue Chicken truck (which promptly adds the unlamented muskrat to its load) while seeing it, it means six more weeks of incestuous isolation from the outside world. Don’t believe me? Check out the birth rates and the subsequent IQ test results.

OK, I tried. But you simply can’t make a muskrat reference without providing…this musical interlude. Pay special attention to some of the worst lyrics of all time:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgCk3bnvO5Y&feature=related[/youtube]

That’s it for this week. What’d I miss and whaddayathink?