Open Thread Jan. 20: Why Delaware Democrats Are Vulnerable

Filed in National by on January 20, 2018

Want to know why Republicans in Delaware will have a chance in November, blue wave notwithstanding? Employment numbers. While growth has slowly but steadily improved nationally over the past two years, Delaware’s rate remains stagnant. No matter what happens elsewhere, that’s a problem the state’s ruling Democrats have resisted fixing.

Of all the wounds inflicted on the country by the GOP coup last November, the courts will bear the most lasting scar. The results are already being felt: One of the most unqualified of the Trump judges just ruled that police can ransack your home if you own a computer. (If you’re interested in legal weed, check out the link for the original case, a clear case of entrapment.) On the other hand, he also made a completely legitimate ruling in another case on his docket, so maybe we’ll only have to dodge the occasional grenade instead of a steady bombardment.

Sometimes it’s the little things that show you how eager some minor functionaries are to live in a Nazi country — such as the tale of a British writer who got a rude welcome to the U.S. from an immigration official at the airport who wanted to know if he was going to write “bad stuff about our president.” The writer in question, James Rebanks, is a sixth-generation Lake District shepherd.

The top story in France today — I checked, it was top of Page 1 in Le Monde — was the death of chef Paul Bocuse, the father of nouvelle cuisine, at age 91. Had he not revolutionized restaurant fare, my years as a restaurant critic would have been unbearable. The obituaries noted something those scandalized by the satyriasis of our president should realize — he’s not unique:

For many years, Mr. Bocuse resisted writing the story of his life, but he eventually worked with Eve-Marie Zizza-Lalu to produce an as-told-to memoir, “Paul Bocuse: The Sacred Fire,” published in 2005. Even in France, eyebrows lifted a little when Mr. Bocuse revealed that for more than 30 years, he had enjoyed the company of not only his wife, Raymonde, the mother of his daughter, Françoise Bernachon, but also of two mistresses, one of them the mother of Jérôme. His wife survives him, as do his two children.

Blevins

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  1. jason330 says:

    The stagnant job growth probably isn’t related to our economic development strategy of blindly throwing money at Fortune 500 companies. Not related at all. Just a coincidence, no doubt.

    Does it open the door for Ken Simpler? Hard to get to the right of Carney on the issue of throwing tax money at corporations.

  2. puck says:

    As a Republican, Simpler would be expected to run on a “cut taxes for the rich, cut services for everybody else” campaign. But Carney has already occupied that space, with the resulting failures in education and corrections, to name a few.

    Carney has left Simpler an opening to run on a good government campaign. If he could suppress the usual DE GOP themes and run on restoring competence and energy to government, he has a good shot.

  3. Alby says:

    I’m thinking the vulnerabilities are further down the ticket. There are a lot of old buffaloes down at the watering hole where the crocs dragged Patti Blevins under who ought to be nervous.

  4. jason330 says:

    The Blevins case is instructive. I agree that there are some checked out Grandpa types shuffling mindlessly through the motions that might be in trouble if Dave Burris has another good recruiting year.

  5. Alby says:

    The only benefit to taxpayers of having these septuagenarians in Dover is we don’t have to pay their lucrative pensions while they’re still “working.”

  6. Alby says:

    Pennsylvania is getting all the good congressional races. The New York Times just broke a sexual harassment story about local Rep. Pat Meehan, whose leching on a young aide caused her to leave the country.

    Meehan was already looking at a tough re-election in the heavily gerrymandered 7th District , which turned to Democrats in a big way in 2016. Sounds like he’s toast now.

  7. Isn’t Meehan the son of the longtime (and longtime unsuccessful) R boss of Philly?