FROM THE EDITOR

What does the ‘Delaware Way’ mean to you?

Posted

DOVER — How do you perceive the “Delaware Way” today?

That’s a question we posed to candidates in our election surveys.

It’s also our Question of the Week for readers.

We’re curious what it means to the people of the First State today.

What does it mean to you?

Has it lost its original vibe?

Have we lost our way?

This editor asked Delaware historian Dick Carter about it Thursday.

“It’s a term that has a very proud and very meaningful history in this state,” he said.

“It is both parties and everybody else coming together to work for the good of the state without worrying unduly about what kind of party this person is or what kind of party that person,” he said.

“When I hear people nowadays using the ‘Delaware Way’ like it’s some kind of dirty term, it just disgusts me.

“The key concept of the Delaware Way is working across the aisle and compromise,” he said. “The two things now that are dirty words are working across the aisle and compromise.”

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Mr. Carter has long been a witness to Delaware politics. He is the chair of the Delaware Heritage Commission and a longtime Delaware senate staffer.

It’s unclear when the phrase came to be, but Mr. Carter thinks the spirit of it goes back to the 1960s and 1970s. He said it typifies Pete du Pont’s era in Delaware in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Gov. du Pont, when he won office in 1976, was a Republican upstart who had to fight tooth and nail, at first, to get Democrats, who held majorities in the House and Senate, to buy into change at a time when the state was “bankrupt” and facing a huge deficit.

News accounts and historical stories say Gov. du Pont worked closely with legislators to come up with ways to improve the state’s financial picture – including creation of a “rainy day” fund.

In 1981, he signed the Financial Center Development Act which gave the state an edge in attracting banks – and jobs – to the state with tax and regulation changes.

Mr. Carter tells the story of Gov. du Pont taking a state helicopter to pick up Democrat Thurman Adams on his way to Democrat Richard Cordrey’s place in Millsboro for the bill signing.

“That’s a classic example of the Delaware Way,” said Mr. Carter.

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Ted Kaufman, who served as Joe Biden’s chief of staff in the Senate and later finished his term when his boss was elected vice president, had a Delaware Way anecdote in a 2012 interview with the Senate Historical Office.

It related to Delaware having the two U.S. senators from different parties — something that has caused great strife in some states. Bill Roth was a powerful Republican from Delaware at the time.

“I was having some problem keeping the staff focused on the fact that we weren’t opposed to Senator (Bill) Roth, even though we were Democrats and he was a Republican,” he said.

“Senator Biden called a staff meeting and said, ‘There is one person in the state of Delaware that I know I’m never going to have to run against and that’s Bill Roth. It’s a firing offense for anyone here to not cooperate with Senator Roth and Senator Roth’s staff.’

“So we had a wonderful relationship. But the Delaware delegation, we’ve always had it great — they call it the Delaware Way.”
When Sen. Kaufman was in office, his counterparts in the Delaware trio were Congressman Castle, a Republican, and Senator Tom Carper, another Democrat.

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In closing, it is best to acknowledge perhaps that the “Delaware Way” is subject to public opinion.

We would welcome yours on the topic. Email civiltalk@iniusa.org.

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