Twenty candidates, for offices from lieutenant governor to county council came to Milford on Aug. 14 to introduce themselves to members of the Sussex community
“This is an opportunity to speak to community leaders,” host Dwayne Powell said to the candidates. “The people you see here tonight will tell their entire communities what you’ve said.”
The event was held at Milford’s Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, and organized by the Milford/Slaughter Neck and Lower Sussex branches of the NAACP.
Lieutenant Governor
State Sen. Charlie Copeland, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, and his opponent Metthew Denn, the incumbent state insurance commissioner, were among the first to speak.
“Delaware last year had the worst economy in the nation,” Copeland said. “I’m a business owner…I know what it takes to bring a blue-collar workforce into a high-technology environment.”
He affirmed a commitment to school choice, and attacked teachers’ unions for working against it.
“The rights of parents and children outweigh the interests of Dover bureaucrats and union bosses,” he said.
Denn also emphasized education in his speech, as part of a “children’s issues” platform.
“We’re not getting the value for our dollar that we should out of our public schools,” he said.
He also pushed for broader protections for the environment, especially concerning toxins like mercury that seriously affect children, and measures to reduce the number of uninsured in the state.
“There are about 20,000 uninsured children in Delaware. We ought to be able to get very close to zero uninsured,” he said.
Sussex County Council
Mike Wyatt and Bob Reed, candidates for the second-district Sussex County Council seat that Finley Jones will vacate later this year, both spoke.
Wyatt touted his experience in local government, including seven years on the Georgetown town council and four years as mayor.
“I’m not a politician. I’m running as a concerned citizen. Democratic, Republican – it doesn’t matter to me,” he said. “I’m here to serve my constituents.”
On economics, he said the county needs better-paying jobs.
“We don’t have an affordable housing problem. We have a wage problem,” he said.
Reed, a former Sussex County sheriff and current chief of police for Preston, Md., focused on his fiscal record.
“We implemented programs in the Sussex sheriff’s office that didn’t cost the taxpayers any money,” he said. “And whoever takes over is going to have some tough financial decisions to make.”
He added that part of the county’s economic problem is making sure new jobs in the area go to local residents.
“When bringing new companies into the county, we need some way to make sure that our youth and our older people get those jobs,” he said.
Mark Baker, one of the candidates in the Republican primary for the council’s third-district seat, also focused on financial issues.
“I believe in limited government and low taxes. We are in a time of financial distress…we’re all doing more with less,” he said. “I think you should expect the same from your government.”
In general, he said, the county needs to manage growth and allow for “a variety of housing options.”
Baker’s opponent, Judson Bennett, spoke mainly on development and zoning.
“We need a comprehensive rezoning, with paid planners,” he said.
Bennett is one of the leaders of a movement to create “adequate public facilities,” in Delaware, which require that the necessary infrastructure be paid for before new development can begin. He, said he would focus on putting those rules in place in Sussex County.
“We need an ordinance geared specifically for Sussex County,” he said.
U.S. Senate
Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell, running against Sen. Joe Biden, was the first congressional candidate to speak. She attacked Congress in general, and Biden in particular, for putting image ahead of policy decisions.
“In one year, the national debt has doubled,” she said. “All of these economic woes could have been prevented if Congress was willing to make the difficult decisions…we’re the ones paying for elected officials not having the guts to put the next generation ahead of the next election.”
She attacked Biden for voting for “inefficient” ethanol subsidies, and for economic policies that she said are generally dangerous to the country.
“We are about to exchange a free economy for a socialist economy,” she said.
U.S. Congress
Two other congressional candidates attended, both Democrats vying for the right to face Rep. Mike Castle in the general election.
Mike Miller, of Lewes, emphasized his mix of traditionally liberal and conservative viewpoints.
“I want to drill for oil. I’m pro-life. I want to see a universal healthcare plan put in place,” he said.
He said his focus as a congressman would be on “protecting the middle class.”
“If we don’t do something, there’s going to be those who are the working poor, and those who are rich. The middle class are being left out of it,” he said.
His opponent, Vietnam War veteran Jerry Northington, has made his campaign first and foremost about ending the Iraq War.
“Opposition to the war is what drove me to start this campaign,” he said.
He also pushed for less education testing, stronger environmental protection,
“In the last eight years, we’ve watched a lot of rights disappear,” he said. “I want to see those rights restored; I want to see those rights expanded.”
He added that he would expand the benefits available to soldiers returning home. “Troops that are coming home today don’t have access to the kind of benefits I did,” he said.
Insurance commissioner
Three candidates for insurance commissioner attended: John Brady, Tom Savage and Karen Weldin Stewart.
Brady, the current Sussex County Recorder of Deeds and the Republican candidate, spoke first, and touted his record as a public official.
“The number one job of the insurance commissioner is to protect consumers,” he said. “I have a track record in elective office of doing the right thing, and I want to continue that as insurance commissioner.”
Savage, a former fireman and police-department lobbyist, spoke out for government-funded health insurance for all of Delaware.
“We need a single-payer health program now,” he said.
Stewart agreed that a single-payer program could help, but also supported measures like expanding medicare to cover more of the working poor. She added the insurance commissioner needs to recover the authority to affect insurance rates in Delaware.
“What has happened in the state of Delaware is that our health insurance has gone higher – and our car insurance, and our malpractice insurance,” she said.
