Power to the People– The Pitchfork brigade holds the Leader accountable
Jul 19th, 2009 by David Anderson
When the peasantry (as the elite see us) had enough, they had a serf revolt. The over lords would take their share from the people first. One year the over lords did not want to suffer inconvenience in the bad crop year and wanted to raise the share. They would have rather threatened the survival of the people than make any minor cuts.
It is happening again. Our new over lords want to raise the take from us with higher energy prices and income taxes regardless of what it leaves us with. Cap and Tax is too important for the peasantry to even read. They say the equivalent of let them eat cake.
It is time for the people to rise up and make their voices heard all across this state in a respectful. peaceful, and persistent fashion. It is time to tell them that you already took the cake. Leave us alone or we shall find the proverbial pitchforks in next September’s primary and maybe in the May conventions and send you away.
Club for Growth and NRA are you listening? It is time. Read on.
The first question that you have to ask in a revolution is do you have a realistic chance of winning. I think we do. I have discouraged such efforts in the past including talking conservatives from raising a convention challenge to Mr. Castle on 3 different occasions and helped persuade a primary challenger not to file on another. I felt that such efforts would have been doomed to failure and would have hurt the emerging conservative wing of the party. Now there is talk about the Congressman challenging a conservative candidate for the senate seat. He had made no effort to reach out to that candidate as of a few weeks ago. The fact that he would not have the courtesy to offer a team approach with conservatives by switching seats to run for is highly disrespectful.
I now believe it is realistic to stand the ground in the senate race if he chooses to enter it. There are several potential issues which could give Mr. Castle a full meltdown of support, the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), the Democrat house health reform, repeal of Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) federal NDA (nondiscrimination Act for gays),and coming tax votes. I am convinced that a left leaning vote on any of these is a killer in the primary on top of his current record.
In a six week campaign where he only spent $10,000, conservative newspaperman Bryant Richardson won 1/4 of the Kent and Sussex republican vote vs. Mike Castle and Janet Rzewnicki in the 1992 Congressional Primary. He was a credible third force in the race. I was honored to be a part of the effort. It is from that race that I saw where a conservative primary campaign could get the votes to unseat him. We just did not have the time, because of the time factor we were outspent 35 to 1 and did not get to organize New Castle County as we would have liked. It did send a message. Congressman Castle only got 55% of the primary vote.
Fast forward to today, before the cap and tax vote and the attack by Castle on gun shows, the Congressman only had a 69% approval within the GOP. That is low for an internal party approval. By contrast, President Bush sank to 77% in the midst of an economic meltdown. Any Republican opponent starts with 25% of the vote. If you add the anger of cap and tax to the mix, the Congressman surely has fewer friends within the party than the March and May polls would indicate. Back then even 25% of the party would not commit to voting for him vs. AG Biden.
If a third of the party turns out in a primary, which would be among the highest in modern times, he would be in trouble but could pull it off if he could get back the Markell Republicans. If the turn out is 20% or lower, he would find the closest relationship cap and tax had to global warming would be his career going down in flames. A higher than 1/3 turnout would also likely be because of anger and would spell doom for the incumbent. He would have to hit a sweet spot of motivating his base enough to overcome the motivated base of opposition, but not bring out more opponents. He only got 55% when he was a popular two term governor in his own party.
We have candidates who are popular enough with in the party. We have the votes out there to find. Will national conservative leaders find their courage? If they raise the money, a smart campaign could win both the primary and the general election. That is another post.
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Prediction:
Mike will will have that Ah-Ha moment and publicly reverse course on Cap & Trade -or- he will decide to retire after facing public opposition (pitchforks) at every public event through the summer and fall.
Now is the time for candidates to form committees and prepare for the house and senate run in 2010.
Here is something more to worry about-the destruction of small business in America. I hope Mr. Castle can use some influence to work such nonsense out of the conference bill.
As proposed by H.R. 3200, if a small business owner cuts back on employee compensation as a response to the new costs associated with the health coverage mandate (or, perhaps even the higher costs that may come from meeting the minimum standard of coverage dictated by the federal government), Sec. 312 of the bill says: “…any contributions on behalf of an employee with respect to which there is a corresponding reduction in the compensation of the employee shall not be treated as an amount paid by the employer.”
Yes, that is right. If a business makes a compensation decision as a reaction to government mandate they will suffer.
Mike Protack
Very interesting. Is it true that Castle has not contacted O’Donnell at all? Has the national party tried talking to her? I figured that Castle would be trying to clear the field, perhaps supporting her in a run for the House seat he’s vacating. Is there a split in the Delaware Republican party?
Anyway, we really need a numbers guru to look at this race (I’ll bet Castle has one). If it’s true that Castle’s approval is only 69% it would certainly be interesting to see what the last off-year Republican primary turnout was like. How is O’Donnell’s fundraising compared to Castle’s?
That 69% is according to the PPP poll. That was before the two recent controversies. For Castle to win he would need 30 to 33% turnout. If he had a low turn out race, he would be dead in the water because a significant percentage of those who do not like him will turn out.
A really high turnout race would not necessarily be good either. That would mean people are motivated to change. The fact is that it would be about who can turn out their voters. There is enough of a base to win on either side. A lot of Castle’s approval is soft within the party. It could also be moved.
Castle has always faced opponents somewhat to his left so he naturally wins.
What real choice have Delaware voters been given in recent years?
I heard about this from my friends in the 9-12 Delaware Patriots. While the citizens at the Kent County session didn’t go easy on him I was told the Sussex County session came close to tarring and feathering him. Thanks for finding and posting some of the video so that we could see how it went. While I notice the absence of tar and feathers, they do seem even more upset than we did.
I am all for trying to work with Rep. Castle while he is still in office, but I agree it is time for him to be primaried out. Barring that I’ll likely be voting third party again. It is telling that when Delaware experienced a Democrat landslide in the last election at all levels, Mike Castle was the only Republican voted on state-wide that won office.
Can a ‘cult of personality’ candidate really have meaningful coattails and help the folks down on the ballot?
Ike had no lasting positive effect on the political future of the GOP. It took Goldwater to return the GOP to relevance. Out of the ‘debacle’ came Reagan.
What ‘excitement’ can a Mike Castle bring? He may be the darling of his Wall Street and trial lawyer friends but how many truly principled individuals contribute to his campaign?
Yet when the General Election rolls around, the nature of the Democrat opponent makes a lot of people hold their nose and vote for Mike as the lesser of two evils.
We need to dump the old ‘politics as usual’ and return to the concept of citizen-legislators who are more than time-serving hacks who grow wealthy in the practice of politics. This may be an initially hard sell in an environment dominated by patronage and special favors to insiders but it is essential to the preservation of our Republic as it was initially conceived.