|
With Election Day less than one month away, the race for U.S. Senate is heating up. Sen. Tom Carper, who has won a record 11 straight elections, is defending his seat against Republican Jan Ting, a law professor who has never held an elected seat.
Democrats now hold both U.S. Senate seats - a rarity in the Republican-controlled Senate, and a monopoly Republicans would like to disrupt.
On the issue of immigration, both candidates are in favor of building a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Amnesty is not the answer. We need a tough, smart comprehensive plan to better secure our borders through hiring more border officers and building a fence,” Carper said. He said he supports a fence that is 300 to 700 miles long, but he said it would not be cost-effective to build a fence on the entire Mexico-U.S. border.
Ting says, “Border security must come first. We must do what we know works, physical barriers, and not only what we know doesn’t work, adding more agents and technology. Second, we must actually enforce our immigration laws - the most generous in the world - and employer sanctions.”
Ting also says if America can resolve its immigration problem, then healthcare will be improved. “We can’t reform healthcare if the borders are open and people are pouring in. Those people use the emergency room for primary healthcare, and who pays for that? We do,” he said.
Partisan politics
Both candidates say Americans are sick of elected officials who focus on their party’s interests instead of issues facing the nation. Carper says it doesn’t matter if an idea is Democratic or Republican – what matters is whether it is a good idea. “We need more people who get things done,” he said.
Ting says, “Frankly, we’re headed for a train wreck with problems and the current atmosphere, with political parties blaming each other, is not conducive to problem-solving.” He said if Delaware has one senator from each party, it would help bridge the gap between the parties and get more accomplished.
Homeland security, war
On the war in Iraq, Ting says, “The only issue concerning Iraq is: What do we do now? I believe unilateral withdrawal would have disastrous consequences for the Iraqis who have supported democracy and risked their lives to vote three times in one year in higher numbers than vote in U.S. elections. Unilateral withdrawal would also have terrible consequences for the U.S., causing our allies to view us as unreliable, and encouraging our enemies to challenge and attack us.”
Carper said he voted for the war, but he would not do so again if he knew now what he did then. Looking forward, Carper has a five-point plan that includes telling the Iraqis that the United States will not be there forever, establishing three autonomous states in the country, and calling upon other Arab states for help. He also calls for resolving the conflict between Israel and Palestine to prevent future terrorism.
Profiles in politics
Carper’s win in 2000 gave Delaware two Democratic senators for the first time in almost 60 years. His victory marked a record 11th statewide election win. That run began in 1976, at age 29, when he was elected State Treasurer; he served three terms. He was then elected to the state House of Representatives five times, and next served two terms as governor.
Born in Beckley, W. Va., in 1947, Carper attended Ohio State University as a Navy ROTC midshipman and following graduation, served in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. He served as a Navy mission command officer; his unit flew planes to hunt for submarines. Returning home, he landed in Delaware, where he earned a Masters of Business Administration at the University of Delaware.
Carper is married to the former Martha Ann Stacy and they have two sons, Christopher and Ben.
A son of immigrants
Ting was born in Michigan in 1948, the son of Chinese immigrants who came to the United States to continue their studies after the Japanese invasion of China in 1937. He is a professor of law at Temple University in Philadelphia, where he teaches courses in taxation, immigration, and national security.
He is a 1970 graduate of Oberlin College and received a Masters Degree in Asian studies from the East-West Center of the University of Hawaii in 1972. Ting earned his law degree from Harvard in 1975.
In 1990, Jan was appointed by the first President Bush as assistant commissioner at the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the U.S. Department of Justice, where Ting served until 1993.
He has also taught as a visiting professor at Widener University in Wilmington.
Ting is married to Helen Page Ting, a physician with Christiana Care.
They have two daughters, Margaret Ting Ryan, also a physician, and Mary, a college student.
|
