US Politics: When Delaware Matters --- And How to Survive It (Haddigan)

EA's US Politics correspondent Lee Haddigan writes:

After reading my daily in-tray of e-newsletters, I am somewhat bemused and enthused this morning. Delaware, the second-smallest state in the US (saved only by Rhode Island from the label of tiniest) and possibly the least-noticed, is now national news, and it will be until the state’s Republican primary for the US Senate is resolved on 14 September.

Establishment Republican favourite Mike Castle is running against Christine O’Donnell, a conservative backed by the Tea Party. And this is not just the latest round in Republican in-fighting before November's general elections. If Castle or O'Donnell defeats the Democrat candidate, he or she will take the seat in Congress immediately because this contest is for a long-term replacement for Joe Biden, who left the Senate to become Vice President. With both Republicans faring adequately --- Castle better than O’Donnell so far --- in the polls against Democrat nominee Chris Coons, plans by the administration to use the "lame-duck" Congressional session between November and January to pass controversial legislation could be significantly affected.

But more on the serious stuff shortly. The big news is that Delaware, for a short while, will be the focus of national politics. As an adopted Delawarean, I feel it is my duty to pass on a few warnings to the media types and interested observers who will try and dissect the politics of the state in the next few days.

(If you are still vainly searching for Delaware on a US map, look for the little outlined dot marked DE, just south of Pennsylvania and east of Maryland. A further note: the only tourist attractions in Delaware are the excellent beaches on the Atlantic coast.)

I claimed Delaware as my state after living there for six years, but I don’t believe Delaware was too happy with my decision. To be considered a proper Delawarean, you have to be a descendant of at least three generations of natives of the state. Joe Biden, who moved to Delaware after his first 10 years in Scranton, Pennsylvania, is not considered by some Delawareans, especially in southern Sussex County, to come from the state that he represented in Congress.

Commentators on this election will congregate in Wilmington, the largest city, and try to predict the outcome. They need to be wary. Wilmington is in the north of the state and viewed by the lower, "slower" half as the home of the credit card companies, and their liberal allies, who have helped ruin the United States. Political views held in Wilmington hold no relation whatsoever to opinions just down the road in Smyrna or Bridgeville.

The Mason-Dixon Line split between the North and South --- in practice, if not in geographical certainty --- occurs just south of the University of Delaware in Newark. It is the line of sharp differences in the state between a commercial/industrial/academic north and a rural south, with the differing political outlooks these generate. Northern Delawareans are prone to portray the south, where corn cribs are still a vital part of heritage, as the home of muskrat-eating, punkin-chunkin (the Punkin Chunkin, or pumpkin throwing, World Championships are staged in Sussex County) hicks. The corporate types who dominate Wilmington, at least in the daytime before they scuttle back to the suburbs, are especially keen to belittle the south as a backward part of the state.

The reality is for analysts trying to figure out this primary, and the Senate election following it, is that they will need to visit the southern half to have a chance of getting it right. So here are some tips for survival....

The first and most important warning is to never order the Scrapple for breakfast. It may be quaint idea to try a local favourite dish, and I did, but look it up on the internet before you attempt it. I never saw muskrat on a menu, but after trying Scrapple it sounds an appetising alternative.

More importantly, once you get past Wilmington, don’t bother talking politics with the locals or even the students in Newark. They don’t care to discuss such matters. Usually a taciturn lot, Delawares will consider you an alien species to be avoided if you break the taboo. Delawareans have opinions, and they vote upon them, but they don’t discuss it with strangers out of the natural civility the state is proud to claim. If in this election, you may catch a local unawares and solicit a terse comment, he or she will suffer from the withering stares from fellow Delawareans for years to come.

Part of the disregard of Delawareans for Wilmington and Newark comes from the opinion that the two places represent the invasion of the state by liberal northerners. However, it mostly stems from what they perceive as America’s mocking ignorance of "Dela-where" from enemies such as as Friends, The Simpsons, and the film Wayne’s World.

Delawareans are proud to point out that they are the First State of the Union, being the first state to ratify the Constitution. They will also remind you that the Stars and Stripes were first flown in battle at Cooch’s Bridge in 1777. Many Delawareans can trace the family history back to the Revolution (one subject, along with stock car racing, they will freely discuss)--- they consider an upstart like California a foreign country.

So, in your short visit there for the election, don’t make fun of Dela-where, at least outside of Wilmington and Newark. The locals are normally polite and civil, but you joke at your own peril.

Perhaps Delaware may surprise me with this nationally watched election and enter the political fray with more gusto than usual. The Tea Party Express, the instigators of the campaign that saw Joe Miller beat Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, have recently announced they will coordinate a similar strategy for O’Donnell to defeat King RINO (Republicans In Name Only) Castle. The aim is to raise $200,000 for her candidacy --- $21,000 has been given to date –-- and that's significant money in Delaware.

For the year that I have been tracking the Tea Party, I have kept an interested eye on the movement’s appeal in Delaware. Minimal, at best, sums up what I’ve seen so far. Unless the Tea Party Express can overcome Delawareans' traditional apathy for political controversy, then it may well see the derailing of O’Donnell’s campaign. Delaware won’t like those Tea Partiers telling them who to vote for, even if they don’t much care for Mike Castle.

Even the much desired endorsement of O’Donnell by Sarah Palin as part of the Palin Babes Revolution (O’Donnell has a telegenic appeal similar that of Palin and South Carolina's Nikki Haley) within the Republican Party will not help much, at least outside of Wilmington. Palin may be a poster girl for the anti-establishment Right nationally, but in this state she is just another of those pesky politicians.

Even before the Tea Party backed O’Donnell, this was turning into a bitter contest by Delaware’s recent standards. In March there were claims that O’Donnell was a hypocrite in calling for fiscal and social conservatism while her own finances and morals were in such disarray. On 21 March, The Wilmington News Journal asserted that O’Donnell owed back taxes, sold her house because it was foreclosed, and still had debts from her campaign against Joe Biden in 2008.

(This article and others are on the Know Christine O'Donnell website which only exists to make available these allegations; there is no commentary and no indication of who finances the site. These claims are duplicated on the realchristine.com website, paid for by the Castle Campaign Fund, which invites visitors to spread the word via Twitter: “How can we trust Christine O'Donnell with our money when she's been so reckless with her own?”)

If you visit O’Donnell’s website,  you will find documents that prove her innocence, at least to her supporters. Some have gone further. Liberty.com, a website founded by former members of the O’Donnell campaign and claiming to be new hub for Tea Party activities, was launched on 1 September with the slur that Castle was having a gay affair without his wife’s knowledge.

Perhaps in states where politics is a contact sport, such attacks may be the norm and may appear somewhat tame. But with citizens forced to be polite from fear of upsetting neighbours in a small face-to-face community, Delaware does not do nasty politics. O’Donnell is attracting criticism for not being immediate enough in her denunciations of the "out-of-state" claim. (On Friday, O’Donnell released a press statement stating: “I do not endorse that kind of mudslinging, and I’m asking all of my supporters not to go down that route.”)

Tongue-in-cheek generalisations aside, this election in Delaware is turning into a pivotal indicator of the future effectiveness of the conservative Right. O’Donnell’s statement denouncing the gay slur continued: “I am challenging Mike Castle to publicly denounce GOP State Chairman Tom Ross’ mudslinging and ask all of the Delaware State Republican Committee to stop the thug politics.” O’Donnell believes she is the victim of repeated attacks by the Republican establishment to wreck her campaign, and she is using that to portray herself as a martyr for the conservative cause. If she manages to upset the odds and beat Castle, it seems almost impossible that she will be able to work with the Delaware GOP party machinery to defeat Democrat candidate Coons in November.

Meanwhile, there are signs of splits within the conservative camp. The gay slur led Erick Erickson of redstate.com, possibly the most influential blogger on the conservative Right, to announce he is no longer actively supporting O’Donnell. He derided “amateur hour” politics --- even though he "would rather be slowly run over by a road roller while listening to Janeane Garofalo dialogue from The Truth About Cats and Dogs than see Mike Castle in the Senate”, he was “pulling the plug” on his interest in Delaware’s Senate race.

The numerous comments posted below Erickson’s article indicate that not all members of the  conservative resurgence are happy with his decision. If O’Donnell is defeated by Castle, expect mutterings in the movement about how O’Donnell was sold out.

I have said that the Tea Party will implode as the result of internal dissension. Could 14 September in Delaware be the date in history books when the first crumbling of the Tea Party coalition began?

Perhaps it is still a little too early for that to happen, but with the stakes so high, it looks like Dela-where has finally pushed aside The Simpsons and Wayne’s World.