Blog Roll Updates & Thoughts on a “Blog” Shilling for the Delaware Republican Party

I have added John Allison’s blog Kilroy’s Delaware to my blog roll. John’s seems to have two principal interests: the Red Clay School District and his complaints with Senator David Sokola, a member of the Delaware Incumbency Party.

I first met John in the early-to-mid 80s. I was a graduate student at the University of Delaware and we both worked part-time at the (now defunct) Pike Creek Residential Treatment Center. The center housed and treated juveniles with behavioral problems. John loved kids and had a great desire to help them. As I recall, he did help many children at the RTC. Therefore, I’m not surprised to see him writing a blog about the school district in Red Clay.

I’ve also decided to add over time the campaign blogs and websites of Delaware political candidates. I’ve provided a link to Michael Berg’s site, Berg for Congress. Berg is the Green Party candidate for US Congress.

I’ve also included Dennis Spivak’s blog site, the Campaign Blog of Dennis Spivack. Mr. Spivak is one of the contenders for the Democratic Party’s nomination to run for US Congress. Mr. Spivak has many thoughtful entries on his blog, but he doesn’t give readers the capacity to leave comments. That’s a pity. Mr. Spivak’s blog entries indicate that he would be a good person to discuss issues with.

I also put Delaware 2006 on my site. I went back and forth about where to place it because although it describes itself as offering “Conservative Views on Delaware's 2006 Elections,” the claim is often belied by the postings and it seems that far too often the “conservative view” is preoccupied with and effectively endorsing Delaware Republican Party candidates.

For example, the anti-immigrant sentiment that pervades the site can hardly be described as “conservative” in the truest sense of the word. To be sure, there is considerable anti-immigrant sentiment in both the Republican and Democratic parties. But any relationship they have to either conservatism and liberalism is usually episodic. Certainly, the anti-globalist and anti-free market values entailed by the anti-immigrant perspective is hardly commensurate with conservatism. It does accord with a reactionary political perspective, but that is a different critter.

Also, the site not only promotes Republican candidates, it is also promotes the official but unstated “acceptable” candidates that the Republican Party prefers. Consider the two candidates vying to challenge Carper for US Senate. If you read Delaware 2006, Mike Protack is always a monster of iniquity and Jan Ting walks on water. That’s precisely the establishment view within the Republican Party.

Consider how the writer on the Delaware 2006 trashed Protack’s performance in his debate with Jan Ting on Thursday night (see here). The writer concludes with acceptable view that compliant Delaware Republicans are supposed to take about Mike Protack: “When will Protack realize he is not a viable candidate and drop out?”

Don’t think that I am making any of this up. I just answered an e-mail tonight to a Republican attorney in Delaware, a new reader of Delaware Watch, who was complaining about how the leadership in the Delaware Republican Party pushes some candidates before the state convention and shuns others. (Whether it’s the Republican Party or Democratic Party leadership in Delaware, they both deny engaging in these activities but everyone knows it is true.) Also, Celia Cohen, the writer of Delaware Grapevine and a recognized astute observor of Delaware’s political scene, attended the debate and she reports that the sense that Protack was unwanted and not taken the least bit seriously by the Delaware Repbulican Party was pervasive at the debate:

…Ting obviously had to work at sticking to the current party line of accommodation. For most of the debate with Protack, he had the look that people reserve for telephone solicitors and stomach aches they wish would just go away….

The event was another occasion for the party to drive home the message that its endorsed candidate should not be forced into a primary, which would be held Sept. 12, especially with the Republicans fighting to reverse a trend that has left them with only two of the nine statewide offices. (link)

Also, I once entered into a discussion at Delaware 2006 asking why Republicans treat Protack so badly merely because he wants to run for office. Protack’s views are far from mine, but I am bewildered by the Delaware Republican Party’s awful treatment of him. I was told by one of the writers at Delaware 2006 that when Swain Lee ran for governor and had to primary against Protack, Protack offered to drop out of the race if the Republican Party made him chairperson of the party. In fact, it was DelaThought who made the claim:

He also tried to "negotiate" his withdrawal from the Governor race in 2004, saying he would remove his name from consideration if he was made Chairman of the state GOP. Bad move. (link)

I have since learned the only problem with this claim is that it is probably not true. In fact, it now seems that this tale was invented about Protack and spread throughout the party membership for no other reason than to smear him.

In any case, my reading of Delaware 2006 has led me to the conclusion that for them truth is far less important than promoting the official line of the Delaware Republican Party. Accordingly, I have placed Delaware 2006 under the link for the Delaware Republican Party. I find the two essentially indistinguishable.