Happy Birthday Bob Mitchell

  This past Thursday night, I, and another hundred or so people attended a candidate debate for the 35th Representative District Republican primary. But I decided to wait and  give my opinion until today, on Bob’s birthday. Don’t say I never gave you anything Bob.  The debate was mainly for the two candidates in the primary for the 35th district, incumbent Rep. Dave Wilson, and challenger, Bob Mitchell.

Prior to those two debating each other, the organizers of the event, The Western Sussex Republican Club, had also invited the two Republican primary candidates for the 2nd District, for County Council to debate. This would be incumbent Sam Wilson, and challenger Lisa Briggs. Here is a photo of that debate.

  As you can see, Sam Wilson chose not to attend, allowing Mrs. Briggs, who is married to her husband Lewis Briggs, to have the stage to herself. When originally contacted by the organizers, Mr. Wilson stated, “I’m the incumbent, why should I be there?”

On the Dan Gaffney Show, the morning after the debate, Sam Wilson stated he did not attend because the event was not held within his district. The event was held at the Bridgeville Library, which technically is not his district. However, Mr. Wilson did manage to ride all the way to Rehoboth to be on the radio with Dan Gaffney, to say he couldn’t be in Bridgeville the night before.

Following this statement, the WSRC again contacted Mr. Wilson and asked if he would participate in a debate with Mrs. Briggs if it were held at the Greenwood Fire Company, which is within his district, again Mr. Wilson declined.

The fact that Sam Wilson will not appear within his district, or anywhere close, raises some questions. Is he just arrogant? Is he afraid to go head to head with his opponent? Is he concerned that voters in the district will see how frail he is following his recent health issues?

Will the voters be afforded the chance to hear from Sam Wilson prior to the primary? Maybe not.

Now this brings us to the main event of the event. Dave Wilson schooling Bob Mitchell on a number of issues, issues which Bob Mitchell chose to make issues himself.

Let me say in the beginning, while Bob Mitchell presents himself as a well spoken and knowledgeable candidate, well he is well spoken, but his knowledge is left in question by his own words and contradictions.

The debate was moderated by Dan Gaffney from Delaware 105.9, and as always, Dan is nothing but a skilled moderator and professional.

I will put up a link to the audio of the entire debate between Rep. Wilson and Bob.

Please understand that I am giving my opinion of what I heard, I may have to skip around, from the beginning to the end, to link some of the inconsistencies of Bob’s attacks on Rep. Wilson. I will in many cases be giving time stamps so my readers can listen to the audio and know where I am talking about in the time line.

In the beginning, the topic was the state budget, and how Rep. Wilson had voted on the bond bill. Bob threw around some figures about the state budget, the deficit spending and debt the state is facing,  he spoke as if he had researched the spending of the state in-depth. But did he?

Because late in the debate, the question was asked, if the Republicans were in the majority in Dover, and you could cut any spending, what would you cut. Now you would think, someone who wants the voters to believe he is “Banker Bob”, would have some good ideas about how to save money, and since he had thrown numbers around in the beginning you would think he had studied the spending of the state.

But when asked, at (43:20) in the audio, he said, “I have not sat in the committee to look at the budget and to look and do line items”.   He then admitted anyone can print out and study the budget. So it would seem the only thing “Banker Bob” studied in the budget was how Rep. Wilson had voted.

It seemed that in talking about the spending bills, Bob got confused about the budget, and the bond bill. Rep. Wilson pointed out the difference, that the bond bill is for capital improvements, which means if you vote against it, you are voting against road improvements, and other infrastructure spending.

To this Bob said at (11:22), “If you have $4.1 and you need to build a school, you figure it out.”  This attitude towards public schools is not surprising, considering Bob, nor his children attended public schools. It’s easy to see no need for something you have never needed.

Of course no evening with Bob would be complete if he didn’t perform his only tricks. When the topic of Farm Land Preservation came up, Bob went to his go to lines. First he said (16:45) he agrees with and likes FLP, but he doesn’t think it’s proper for elected officials to take tax payers dollars. Does this mean Bob will, if elected, work for free? After all someone voted for the wages of the legislators, and some of them are still there, would Bob abstain from voting on pay raise, since he might benefit in the future?

At (17:50) Rep. Wilson explains just how FLP actually works and why there was no conflict of interest in his participation. Some may remember that Rep. Wilson bid his property at a 64% discount price to the program, he asked Banker Bob if he had ever sold anything at a 64% discount? (18:50)

Bob attempted to say that Rep. Wilson had sold nothing, since he still owned the land, and if he chose not to develop it, then he didn’t have to, that he had simply been paid the money to continue to do what he was already doing.

One problem, as Rep. Wilson pointed out, he did not simply sell the development rights while he owns the land, or even his heirs. No matter who buys the land, or who sells the land, no one will be able to build a development or industrialize it, forever.

Rep. Wilson explains this to Bob later in the give and take, Rep. Wilson explains how having this land in FLP prevent impact on the infrastructure, like paramedics, and schools along with other services. But Bob only cares about his mission for the MOB, which is to attack Dave Wilson.

It is at the mark of (21:35) when the audience turned on Bob, this was the first applause of the night and it was for Dave Wilson. At (22:30) Bob makes the mistake in asking for a show of hands of all those who knew about FLP and how to research who participates. Many hands went up, though Bob tried to down play it. It seems that while many in the room knew that it was posted in the newspaper, Bob did not.

Another topic (23:35) was political party participation over the years. Of course Rep. Wilson had a long list of groups and activities he had been a part of for the GOP since 1968.

Bob on the other hand had excuses. Seems Bob was too busy raising his kids to be able to do anything else. One might wonder how Dave Wilson managed to raise children, be a farmer, and build several successful enterprises, and also be a public servant.

If Bob can’t multi-task, how will he be able to be a legislator and hold a job? And does this mean he is done with his family? Will they never see him if he is elected?

As I have stated here before, and which Bob confirmed at the debate, he has been completely uninvolved in politics and local government, right up and until he decided to run against Rep. Wilson. Oh he talked about issues with his wife, but his concern never led him to reach out to anyone in government, not even the man he is now challenging.

In fact, in a bit of a gotcha moment, Bob was asked if he knew the name of the Mayor of Greenwood, he did not. So, Bob lives in the Greenwood ZIP code, and doesn’t know who the Mayor is. This speaks to the fact Bob has never been involved until the Greenwood MOB talked him into running. Oh the arrogance.

In fact he had never met Dave Wilson until the morning he told Rep. Wilson he was running against him in the primary. The first time ever!

Then we come to the real reason for Bob’s misguided run against Rep. Wilson, the Register of Wills race, in which Dave Wilson supported the best person for the job, instead of the Republican Cindy Green.

At (27:15) Bob says he needed a reason to run against Dave Wilson, and states that the fact Dave Wilson had supported a Democrat over a Republican was good enough. This once and for all, in Bob’s own words, shows he is running to settle the score for Cindy Green and the rest of the MOB. And in a long and round about way, he confesses that yes, for him, party affiliation is more important than choosing the best person to serve the citizens.

Finally, there were two example of what we have come to recognize as “big government conservatives”. We saw a lot of this with the Jeff Christopher campaign for sheriff. It’s when so-called conservatives show their inner selves. That it isn’t about smaller government, it is about them being in charge of the government. Spending is fine, as long as they get to decide what the spending is for.

I have to jump back to the point in the audio at (20:00) when Bob Mitchell says he doesn’t care if money in the budget is set aside for specific uses, to him it is all one big pot. Haven’t Republicans been critical of using money set aside for specific uses as a general fund? Haven’t we been fighting for lock-boxes? Isn’t that what Dave Wilson was fighting for this last General Assembly with FLP?

Then at the very end, Bob says, “it’s not about cuts, it’s about moving things around”. So is he not in  favor of saving tax dollars? As long as he is the one deciding how they get spent?

Bob Mitchell is the worst type of candidate, running for the wrong reasons. He seeks out only the knowledge which he believes will help him get elected, and nothing more. He is running because some people convinced him he can win. He is running not because he thinks he is the better candidate, but because he simply want Dave Wilson out. He is shallow and arrogant, and his loss will be the greatest achievement of his political career.