Tuesday, October 06, 2009

JOE BIDEN, HORSERACE

Castle's In; Expect a Tough Fight, But No Fireworks

The buzz is that Mike Castle is running for Senate in Delaware.

To find a competitive Senate race in this state, you have to go back to 2000, when Tom Carper knocked off William Roth. Roth, then 79, had been in the Senate 30 years, and his Democratic rival, then 53, had "emphasized the age difference indirectly," campaigning long hours and using the slogan "A Senator for Our Future." When Roth fell during a campaign event in the final month, it underlined worries about his health; he passed away three years later.

If history is any precedent, Castle and Biden will take the high road. One of Carper's ads in 2000 featured the candidate in a kitchen saying, "I respect Bill Roth, but we disagree on some very important issues." Carper won with 56 percent of the vote, probably helped by Al Gore carrying the state by 13 percentage points.

UPDATE: Another interesting point about that race: According to The Other Campaign: Soft Money and Issue Advocacy in the 2000 Congressional Elections, by David B. Magleby, the national Democratic committees spent $4.3 million on this race, while the National Republican Senate Committee spent almost nothing. The Roth campaign told them to stay out of the race, insisting their man was up by 10 percentage points.

10/06 10:39 AMShare