It was a long hard fight with PEPCO holdings fighting it every step of the way - but the deal was struck this morning.

As Delaware's top blogger, Tom Noyes, put it it:

The News Journal identifies one important factor as to why Delmarva Power accepted Senator Tony DeLuca's invitation to sit down and work out an agreement:

   

But after an outpouring of public sentiment for a wind deal, and after DeLuca and Lt. Gov. John Carney got involved, Delmarva started negotiating.

This is just an observation rather than a full-blown diary.

But I thought it was interesting how everyone was waiting to hear from Obama on FISA in order to get a clear sense of where we are going with this as a nation.

Unlike George Bush, Obama released a Presidential  statement that lays the ground work for moving forward.

A: Hello, and thank you for being interviewed about this.  You’ve said that if Hillary Clinton wins the nomination that you’ll abstain from voting or vote for a third party candidate. Do you stand by that?

B: Yes I stand by that. I might even vote for McCain, but I doubt it.  One thing is for sure I will not be voting for Hillary Clinton.

A: Doesn’t that seem kind of short sighted? I mean, what if that helps Johnn McCain win?  He wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years.  Also, McCain will be appointing Supreme Court justices.   He looks like he would be a horrible president. Maybe rival Bush in the sucking department.

From Today’s Cape Gazette Letters page is a response the letter discussed here.(I’m not block quoting it to make a easier to read.)

Mother says daughter disputes incident

My daughter is a fifth-grader at Lord Baltimore Elementary School and is in fact in the classroom that has been the latest topic of discussion. Just a little background before I proceed - I have four daughters actually, ranging from first grade to second year of college, and I have only requested a teacher one time in my life and that was for this same teacher. My daughter had her in third grade and loved her.

This letter to the Cape Gazette is as heartbreaking as it is shocking.

Cape Gazette February 22

Pray for understanding and an end to hate

Our 10-year-old sister, Amani, is in the fifth grade at Lord Baltimore, a public elementary school in Ocean View. Last Tuesday, her teacher "taught" her class that Barack Obama is a Muslim and that she would not vote for him because he does not swear on the Bible, nor recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Her teacher told the class that she is a Republican and that Barack Obama "believes in different things and is scary."

Liz - Being aware was insanity inducing back then.

I knew the war was bullsit. You knew the war was bullshit. Joe Biden knew the war was bullshit. Hillary Clinton knew. Everyone knew. And yet, it was as if every person with a glimmer of awareness in the country felt like they were the subject of some kind of sick psychological experiment.

We were being told that we needed to close our eyes tightly to see what they saw. We needed to demote reason and common sense as tools for interpreting the world and rely instead on fairy tales, magic dust and their gnostic interpretations of some ancient texts written in a long dead language.

I imagine that this has been diaried already, but I thought it was interesting.  I guess Huck sees a bit of daylight in McCain's recent problems.

LA Times

Mike Huckabee's strategy: Deadlocked convention
In an interview with a San Antonio radio station this morning, Mike Huckabee essentially confirmed the suspicions of many analysts. He's hanging on in the Republican presidential nomination fight hoping to keep John McCain from winning enough delegates to get the nomination on the first ballot at the Republican National Convention in September.

Huckabee's thinking: With no clear nominee, the conservative wing will move to him, and he might be able to snatch the nomination in a floor fight, he told station WOAI-AM (1200). But it will take an upset win in Texas on March 4 to do that, he said.

WITH 312 OF 313 DISTRICTS REPORTING

51,125 - Obama
50,010 - Total Republicans

Yes, that’s right, people. Barack Obama has outpolled the entire state of Delaware Republican votes.

Turnout:
Democratic Voter Turnout = 38 %
Republican Voter Turnout = 28 %

Top 2 Vote Getters:
Obama 51125 53.07%
Clinton 40751 42.30%

To put that in perspective. John Kerry won the last Delaware Democratic primary with 16,729 votes.

I hadn't intended to cover the Obama rally in Wilmington Delaware as a journalist and even told fellow blogger, Tom Noyes, on my way to the event that I wanted to be just an attendee in order to let myself get swept away.

But the crowd was so huge and my kids begged off at the last minute - so I took Mrs. Liberal on a little trip through the looking glass to show her how we citizen journalists work these types of events.  

Here is the pitch...

   Everybody is talking renewable energy and suddenly off shore wind power gets a big boost through an open process which selected it to wide public acclaim.

   Just when the project is set to be approved, a group of corrupt state legislators clearly in the employ of the big local dirty energy conglomerate suddenly nix the deal after secret back room meetings. Those out of touch legislators expect a few red herrings and a packet of lies aimed at discrediting the clean energy will make the whole mess go away and their paymasters will be happy. Why not, it has always worked in the past.

So I’m walking out of Sardi’s tonight after a nice corporate dinner and while I’m waiting near the coat check for my companion to come back from the bathroom I realize that I’m standing right next to Tom Friedman.  

When it comes to supporting George Bush, Tom Carper makes Mike Castle look like a rank amateur.  Carper's  voting record makes him a unique species in the Senate.  A blue state Democrat who is a 100% Bush supporter.

In the last three Senate votes that can be used to measure a Senator's willingness to give Bush the benefit of the doubt - Carper voted 100% for Bush.

This August recess Mike Castle is breaking with tradition and not holding ANY public meetings.  It is sad but (given his pro-Bush voting record) not surprising.  

I spoke a staffer in Castle's Dover Delaware office who said that  the Congressman might hold one of a new style "robo call town meetings" in which lucky constituents who get called can "opt in" to take part in a conference call.

While Mike Castle has recently been trying to pass off these PR events as town hall meetings -  no "actual" town hall meetings are being held.  The fact that Mike Castle that refuses to hold ANY public meetings has raised a couple questions in my mind that maybe the collective kosackian wisdom can help me with.  

1. Isn't reporting back to his/her  constituents part of a Congressman's job?    

John Aravosis totally annihalatesthe Republican "moderates" pushing the bogus "Iraq Study Group (ISG) Recommendations Implementation Act of 2007."

In Delaware we have a fake moderate named Michael Castle who claims to have voted against every Democratic plan to demand accountability from the White House on Iraq on the ground that they were "symbolic."

As Aravosis points out, the  ISG Recommendations Implementation Act is a measure that  is written as a "sense of the Congress" - meaning,  "it has the same legal weight as National Ice Cream Day."

How easy my life would be if I were a "centrist."   If I could just let go of my "extremists" view that we have to get out of Iraq and  allow myself to stroll lazily down the middle of the road like the Wilmington News Journal Editorial Board my life would be a dream.

I could be a sensible and sober advocate of "not staying in Iraq" and "not leaving Iraq" and look down on both George Bush and dirty fucking hippies at the same time.  No one could pierce my carapace of calm because I'd have a single great all-purpose rejoinder to every argument.

The following was written by fellow Delaware blogger Kavips.  

"The next time a blogger gets close to Mike Castle, he should ask this question. “Why do you persist in supporting the Bush war when it is obviously in your best political interests, not too?

Talk about a political scoop. That answer would race to the top of both right and left political discussions.

So why does Republican Congressman Mike Castle persist in supporting a president who, within Delaware at least, has a popularity level even below the national average of 27%?

According to The Hill, Multi-Millionaire Congressman Mike Castle and some other so called "moderate" Republicans are starting a PAC to raise money to help other "moderate Republicans" as if such a thing still exists.  

Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.), a longtime member and former co-chairman of the Tuesday Group, said lawmakers launched the PAC to help vulnerable centrists (snip)

“You always want to increase your numbers or maintain them so that’s always a matter of some concern,” Castle said when asked about the declining number of House centrists.

“Any elected official is concerned about the next election,” he said. “With any of these moderates, that’s constantly an issue. You’re subject to attacks from the right and the left when you’re in the middle (sic). It’s not approached by anything akin to alarm, but it’s genuine political concern.”

Castle is one of several GOP centrists the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has targeted for defeat in 2008.

UPDATE: 9:45 pm

In the overheated "willing to believe the worst about everyone" atmosphere taking over Leg. Hall John Daniello made a sarcastic comment that was taken seriously.  

I’m hearing that Daniello (in spite of the fact that he hates blogs and bloggers) paid bloggers a backhanded compliment by sarcasticly commenting “if this thing doesn’t pass (HB177 ?), bloggers should have to register as lobbyists.” It was a kind of acknowledgment that blogs are having some impact.  
----------------------------
Mike Mathews a prominent Delaware blogger who is live blogging the closing days of the legislative term is reporting that Delaware Democratic Party Chairman, John Daniello, working to get "someone to introduce a bill to require bloggers to register as lobbyists"

He is blogging via his smart phone so things are a bit sketchy right now.  

I'll update as more info comes in.