J.E. Dyer
HotAir.com
Greenroom
9/16/2010
I love Karl Rove to death. (Who couldn’t love a guy nicknamed “Turd Blossom” by his boss?) But in rendering his negative judgment on Christine O’Donnell’s electability, he seems to be taking a very one-sided look at the Delaware Senate race.
O’Donnell will be only half the equation in November. The other half is New Castle County Executive Chris Coons. As this Delaware blogger observes, Coons is a virtual unknown for Delawareans outside New Castle County. His national fame has been growing exponentially in the past 48 hours, however, as the blogosphere explodes with link upon link to excerpts from his 1985, Amherst-student-era oeuvre “Chris Coons: The Making of a Bearded Marxist.”
Now, we all wrote stupid stuff when we were 22. But it seems almost laughably hapless of Coons to have written his because he went to Kenya (yes) and came back with thoughts like these:
“I became friends with a very wealthy businessman and his family and heard them reiterate the same beliefs held by many Americans: the poor are poor because they are lazy, slovenly, uneducated,” wrote Coons. “I realize that Kenya and America are very different, but experiences like this warned me that my own favorite beliefs in the miracles of free enterprise and the boundless opportunities to be had in America were largely untrue.”…
…The Blue Hen Conservative has done some spade work on Coons’ claims about his performance as an Executive (i.e., supervisor) of New Castle County. Contrary to the theme of his TV ads, the Coons record is not one of improving the county’s fiscal situation. In 2005, Coons (elected in 2004) described the county’s fiscal position as “fundamentally sound.” By 2009, he was concerned that the county was “18 months from being out of money.”
This, however, was in spite of a series of property tax hikes that – in other states – would have gotten him tarred and feathered. To save the county’s AAA bond rating, Coons raised property taxes by 25% just in 2009. (After hefty hikes in two previous years.) Meanwhile, says Blue Hen Conservative, the size of the county’s annual budget increased 33% during Coons’ tenure. The tax hikes didn’t cover that: county reserves are now down 30% from when he took office…
Read the complete article at HotAir.com
Update: At the 11:44 mark of this video, Beck talked about Chris Coons on his show this evening. “Watch what the other hand is doing…”
