Delaware State News DOVER — With the Iowa caucuses complete and New Hampshire’s presiden­tial primary looming on Tuesday, the 2012 election season is officially underway.

In Delaware, the Republican Party is gearing up for a fight against Democrats — vowing to add some red into the state’s pre­dominately blue areas.

“We have a number of candidates who are preparing to challenge Democrats across the state,” said state GOP chairman John Sigler.

“You’re going to see a number of races that are going to be competitive this time that have probably not been competitive in the past. It is our intent to end one-party rule in Delaware.”

Republicans currently hold just one statewide elected office — state auditor Tom Wagner — but the party is hoping to change that with candidates who are “real people,” said Mr. Sigler.

“I’m very pleased with the number of what I refer to as “real people,” folks who have real jobs, real families and who have a real love for the state of Delaware, who are saying enough is enough. It’s time for me to step forward and be counted,” he said.

That includes candidates for Delaware’s U.S. House and Senate seats, governor, lieutenant governor and insurance commissioner.

Even more Republicans are expected to join the races in the coming months, Mr. Sigler said.

“It’s still way early for these folks to be jumping into races,” he said. “You’re probably going to see a lot more activity as this month moves forward and well into March and April.”

Candidates have until noon on July 10 to file for a statewide or other elected office. According to the state elections department, no candidates have officially filed yet, but that’s expected since the filing deadline is still months away.

Restoring balance

Several potential candidates have expressed an interest in running for statewide office under the Republican Party platform. Some of the names will be familiar to Delawareans and some won’t be.

Tom Kovach is a name many Delawareans have heard before. The former state representative and current New Castle County Council president has announced he will run for the U.S. House seat currently held by Democratic Rep. John Carney.

With Democrats controlling all three of the state’s congressional seats, the General Assembly and all but one of the statewide elected offices, Mr. Kovach said he felt the time was right to seek federal elected office to bring balance back to the First State.

“After the general election in 2008, in Delaware we really lost a sense of balance, which in my view provides a lot more effective government,” he said. “ When you have both sides of an argument working with each other and working against each other, I think you have the most productive form of government.”

When one party holds the majority in several levels of government, the interests of that party take precedence over the interests of the people, Mr. Kovach said.

“That’s not on every vote or every issue, but it creates a real problem,” he said. “It shuts down that independent thought. It’s critical in times when we need government to adapt to change to bring in voices from the outside.

"Taking care of special interests that have been controlling Delaware government and national politics needs to change. We need to represent the vast interest of the people of this country.”

Restoring balance in the state is also one of the reasons why Milford businesswoman Sher Valenzuela said she plans to run for lieutenant governor of Delaware.

“At the very least we need balance in government,” she said. “If nobody ever shows up, how do we find balance? We have to at least give citizens a choice.”

Mrs. Valenzuela owns First State Manufacturing with her husband Eliseo. She said running the business for several years has taught her important lessons that she can use as lieutenant governor.

“As a business owner, I look at what it takes to create jobs,” she said. “I know what it’s like not to be dependent on somebody other than myself, and I know what it’s like to create paychecks for other people.”

Primary race

For at least one race, Delaware Republicans will have to vote in a primary election to choose which of two candidates will represent their party.

Benjamin Mobley, of Middletown, and James Van Houten, of Bear, have both expressed an interest in running for the office of state insurance commissioner.

Mr. Mobley has worked for the last 10 years as a financial investment adviser and he holds insurance licenses in multiple states.

“I understand both an insurance perspective and in addition to that I have the consumer perspective as well,” Mr. Mobley said.

As prices continue to rise on everything from groceries to gas, Mr. Mobley said having this knowledge of what the everyday consumer is experiencing is important especially as Delawareans face trying financial times.

“There’s a trickle-down cost to the consumer when it comes to insurance, and I think in a state where 25 percent of residents are on Medicaid, we’re starting to price people out,” he said.

This is Mr. Mobley’s first time running for office.

Mr. Van Houten has more than 20 years of experience in the insurance industry and also holds insurance licenses in multiple states. He previously ran in 2010 for the state House of Representatives.

“I’ve been in the business for 20 years, and I’ve sold all lines of insurance,” Mr. Houten said.

With numerous years of insurance experience, Mr. Houten said he feels he is especially qualified to be Delaware’s insurance commissioner.

“The position of insurance commissioner is right up my alley, as they say,” he said. “I can immediately go in and start making changes that will benefit the citizens of the state of Delaware.”

‘A Republican year’

With Republican candidates gradually filling up the ballot, Mr. Sigler said he’s optimistic that this year will be a successful year for the party in Delaware.

“I view this as a new beginning for Delaware,” he said. “I’ve used that as my theme since I’ve been chairman and I firmly believe that this will be a Republican year up and down the ticket both in Delaware and the nation.”

As long as the party can continue to attract everyday citizens as candidates for the election, Mr. Kovach said he’ll share Mr. Sigler’s optimism.

“I think there’s a fantastic opportunity for Republicans in Delaware if we welcome people right and make sure that we’re inclusive rather than exclusive,” he said, adding that he has only been actively involved with the party for three years but has gained widespread support up and down the state.

“What an opportunity we have as a party to bring in people who have business perspectives,” continued Mr. Kovach. “We can legitimately brand ourselves as a party representing the people. To some it sounds corny, but it really represents the fundamental principles of our government.”

Staff writer Jessica Eisenbrey can be reached at 741-8242 or jeisenbrey@newszap.com.

GOP campaign taking shape

 Delaware Republicans finally have a slate of statewide candidates assembled to challenge formidable Democratic incumbents.

Dubbed "real people" candidates, three small-business owners have stepped forward to run for U.S. senator, governor and lieutenant governor after party leaders spent most of 2011 recovering from devastating electoral losses in 2010.

Jeff Cragg, a little-known owner of a Mail Boxes Etc. store in Fairfax, intends to
challenge Gov. Jack Markell, who was recently dubbed the safest incumbent
Democratic governor in the country by one influential political publication.

Sher Valenzuela, co-owner of an upholstery manufacturing company in Milford, said she
will try to unseat Lt. Gov. Matt Denn. On Monday, businessman Kevin Wade will
officially launch his campaign for U.S. Senate against Democratic incumbent Sen.
Tom Carper on the steps of the historic Court House in Old New Castle, where
Wade lives.

"This is going to be about real issues with real-people candidates as opposed to the
political-class candidates," said John Sigler, chairman of the Delaware Republican
Party. "Some of these incumbents are not  as well-liked as they think they are.
Certainly their policies aren't as well-liked as they'd like to think."

Joe Aronson, executive director of the Delaware Democratic Party, dismissed
Sigler's characterization that Markell, Carper, Denn and U.S. Rep. John Carney
aren't in touch with "real people."

"Our folks are as real as anyone else," Aronson said. "If the only argument on the
other side is that the people who have been elected are Democrats, I think that's
a pretty weak one."

The Cook Political Report has said a Markell second term is the safest bet
among eight Democratic governors facing re-election this year.

Markell remains popular, despite having raised taxes, cut pay for state employees
in 2009 and slashed benefits for new workers starting this year, said Jennifer E.
Duffy, senior editor at The Cook Political Report.

"It appears that Markell has successfully navigated the many challenges the
recession created for him in his first term," Duffy wrote in an analysis of the governor's
race last month. "The betting is that he will get just nominal opposition in his bid for a second term."

In an interview, the governor brushed off Sigler's claim that since Markell joined the
political class -- he was first elected state treasurer in 1998 -- he has lost touch with
the business world, where he was once an executive at Nextel and Comcast.

"I'm really less interested in what they might have to say and more interested in
what we can work together to get done," said Markell, 51. "My business experience
has been a significant help to me in working through the significant challenges
Delaware has faced and continues to face."

As Republicans struggle to piece together a political party left demoralized from 2010
election losses, Democrats have the power of incumbency on their side.

Carper, who turns 65 later this month, is one of the state's longest-serving
politicians, having held a statewide office every year since 1977. Denn, 45, served a
four-year term as insurance commissioner before being elected lieutenant governor in
2008.

"I have not seen any indication that either Carper or Markell have much to fear," Duffy
said in an interview.

Uphill fight

Duffy said Cragg's biggest challenge will be raising money to match Markell's growing
national donor base. But Cragg, Valenzuela and Wade have on advantage over their
Democratic opponents in a year that jobs and the economy will be the top issues,
Duffy said.

"This is a very good year to be an outsider and a very good year to be a business
person," Duffy said.

Each candidate is banking on voter anger at career politicians in Washington and
Dover to help them overcome the nearly 112,000 voter-registration advantage
Democrats have over Republicans in Delaware.

"I don't have a tremendous appetite for politics at this point in my life," said Wade,
60, owner of a manufacturing systems engineering firm in Newark. "But how can
we sit here and watch this country run into a ruin by professional politicians?"

Wade briefly ran for the U.S. House in 2010 until dropping out of the race after a
poor finish at the state convention.

Cragg, 51, of Brandywine Hundred, intends to campaign on giving voters a different
choice for making government more efficient -- something Markell has been
focused on.

"If you're going to reform government and make it more efficient, the last thing you do
is take a career politician and move them around and expect a different result,"
Cragg said.

Since 2000, Cragg has operated mail-receiving businesses for companies
incorporated in Delaware through a Mail Boxes Etc. in the Fairfax Shopping Center
and a UPS store in downtown Wilmington that closed in November. Cragg previously
spent 24 years in life and health insurance sales and management and explored
running for insurance commissioner in 2004.

Valenzuela is entering the race for lieutenant governor with no political
experience. Valenzuela, her husband, Eli, and business partner Ashley Wolfe are co-
owners of First State Manufacturing, a commercial upholstery business in Milford.
The 58-year-old mother of three from Felton is a former Delaware State News
opinion page editor.

About a month ago, Valenzuela noticed the Republican Party still didn't have a
candidate for lieutenant governor.

"I was thinking, 'Well, that's not good,' "Valenzuela said. "Even if you're supporting
this administration, you need to have some balance in the mix. I was just having
conversations that led to a natural progression of 'Why not me?' ... And the
door opened and I went through it."

 Other campaigns

 Statewide, other races also are taking
shape.

Republican Party leaders have lined up behind New Castle County Councilman Tom
Kovach to challenge freshman U.S. Rep. John Carney. Kovach first has to get past
Brandywine Hundred resident Rose Izzo in a GOP primary.

In the insurance commissioner's race, incumbent Karen Weldin Stewart faces a
Democratic primary against one of her former employees, Mitch Crane, and
Vincent White. Republicans also may have a primary between financial investment
adviser Ben Mobley and insurance salesman Jim Van Houten.

Kovach is the only elected official among the slate of Republican candidates for
statewide offices, a reflection of the GOP's shallow bench, Duffy said.

"There's not a line of people waiting to run for these offices, especially after Castle's
loss last year," said Duffy, referring to Christine O'Donnell's 2010 upset of Castle
in a U.S. Senate Republican primary.

Home runs and grand slams make for exciting baseball, but no team would ever want to rely solely on the "long ball" for a winning season. The teams with solid fundamentals are the ones that make the playoffs.

While government and our current economic challenges certainly aren't baseball, I believe the analogy is relevant and would encourage policymakers in Delaware to again focus on the fundamentals to improve our state's economic future.

The primary focus of government policy should be on creating an environment where the private sector can grow and create sustainable, quality jobs. Instead, there has been an increasing trend to micromanage the business community, dispensing tax dollars in the form of subsidies and grants from special government funds. Along with the money comes a lot of red tape for the recipients to work through and an expanded government bureaucracy to oversee and administer it all. To justify the expense and scope of this intervention, the government spends still more money conducting fuzzy counts of jobs reportedly created or saved by the investment of taxpayer dollars.

This approach is especially troubling because it substitutes the judgment of a few well-placed individuals in government for the the proven amalgam of market forces, consumer selection, and savvy business decisions. On the federal level, the folly of such action was vividly illustrated recently when solar panel maker Solyndra went belly-up, laying off 1,100 workers, after taking more than a half-billion dollars in government loans.

One of the latest examples of this policy drift in Delaware is the recent creation of the "New Jobs Infrastructure Fund." The money, $55 million in the first year, will be doled out by a committee controlled by the Executive Branch. This appropriation exceeds the $32 million Strategic Fund -- set up to attract new businesses to Delaware -- and even the Grants-In-Aid program, which received more than $41 million in the current fiscal year. While the goals of the New Jobs Infrastructure Fund are laudable -- to encourage job growth -- it comes with reduced legislative oversight, increased centralized decision-making and yet another application process.

While the Markell administration has made strides in improving our state's economy, Team Delaware continues to struggle. Delaware has lost 30,000 jobs since 2008 and has an unemployment rate of about 8 percent. Government spending as a percentage of Delaware's GDP has continued to grow, while private sector economic performance has remained weak.

So, what are the fundamentals that I believe we need to truly focus on, beyond the headlines and press releases? They include reducing the tax burden for small business, streamlining the regulatory process and cutting any unnecessary red tape and interference from state government. These are common-sense measures that can help our business community succeed.

We also need to take more aggressive steps to reduce energy costs, a leading factor businesses consider when choosing a location.

In addition to a real focus on the fundamentals, if we are going to use our tax code and tax dollars to provide incentives or specific grants, why not set aside 50 percent of government development funds for job creation regardless of industry? After all, the person looking for work, first and foremost, wants a job and is indifferent to whether or not it is a green, blue or purple job. This approach might help foster the next "big thing."

I've voted for a number of the economic development initiatives of Gov. Markell and will continue to work with him to improve our economy. As we craft our policy for the future, I think we need to focus more on our base-hitting -- instituting changes that, while they may not be headline-grabbing, will create an overall environment where the private sector can better determine its future and thrive.

NEWARK, Del. — Newt Gingrich edged out Mitt Romney in a Delaware GOP straw poll Wednesday night by a margin of 40 percent to 39 percent.

"This shows even in Delaware Republicans haven't settled on one candidate for the 2012 presidential nomination, and it's a two-man race here as it is in much of the nation," state Chairman John Sigler said after announcing the vote at a winter fundraising dinner.

The victory is another signal that Mr. Gingrich has turned his once-floundering nomination bid into a success while spending virtually no money and having no organization to speak of.

"Mitt has had people here working this state for five or six months and Newt just started organizing here a few days ago, said State Rep. Gregory Lavelle, who described himself as an informal adviser to Mr. Romney's Delaware campaign.

The other five nomination contenders placed in the single digits in the poll of state party central committee members, delegates to the most recent state GOP convention and delegates to the state GOP women's federation convention.

"What's significant here is that only party regulars — state committeemen and women and delegates — could vote, and yet it came out this way," said Mr. Sigler, a conservative heading a state GOP normally helmed by a moderate Republican.

WILMINGTON -- Wilmington City Councilman Michael A. Brown Sr. officially announced Monday he is running for mayor.

Brown was flanked by GOP leaders, including National Committeewoman Priscilla Rakestraw, former state Sen. Charles L. Copeland and State Committee Chairman John Sigler, as he kicked off his mayoral campaign Monday at Wilmington's Public House restaurant. Although the turnout was high, the City Council's sole Republican could face tough hurdles in a town where Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly a 6-1 ratio and whose last GOP mayor was elected in 1968.

"The odds are certainly against me," Brown said. "But if you take a moment to look over the 40 years that this city has been under the control of the Democrats, if you take a look at who's been there, all this city has been doing is recycling people, moving them from one place or one chair into another place or another chair.

"There has never been anybody that really came forth or was allowed to come forth with new ideas and change to be made. Why? Because of the control of the Democratic Party."

Of Wilmington's 48,953 registered voters, 12 percent are registered Republicans, according to the state Department of Elections. Democrats make up 70 percent of registered city voters, while the remaining 18 percent are a combination of other parties.

Brown said he offers an alternative in how he would go after jobs for the city, cut government spending and fight crime.

"We're not going to eliminate all of the crime, but we are going to do our darndest ... to make sure that the crime rate is dropped," he said, adding he would sit down with police officers to give them the opportunity to come up with ideas, get a good police chief and work with the community.

Samuel Hoff, a political science professor at Delaware State University, said Brown has a chance, especially if the two-term councilman focuses on his credentials such as his military background, that he is a former member of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement and his appointment to the Drug and Alcohol Residential Task Force.

"Those are going to be strong credentials in a race that obviously is concerned with the amount of violence in the city and how to alleviate it," Hoff said.

Wilmington's rate of violent crime was the third-highest in the nation among more than 450 similar-sized cities in 2009 and 2010, FBI data show.

"If I'm a consultant of Mr. Brown, I'm going to emphasize these other areas and let other folks bring out that he is a Republican," Hoff said. "He has to come at it from his credentials generally and ability to solve the problems that are confronting the city."

Brown's event Monday brought out more than 50 people, including several Democrats, such as 33-year-old Javar Simpson, who said he came out to support a man who has been a mentor to him since he was 12.

"He's always looked out for me regardless of party affiliation," Simpson said.

State Rep. Dennis P. Williams, D-Wilmington North, State Sen. Bob Marshall, D-Wilmington West, and the Rev. Derrick Johnson, pastor of Joshua Harvest Church in Wilmington, are some of the Democrats who have announced publicly they intend to run for the mayor's seat.