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The run for the lone Delaware representative seat in the U.S. House is crowded with four candidates. Republican Mike Castle, serving his seventh term, is challenged by Democrat Dennis Spivack, Independent Karen Hartley-Nagle, and Green Party candidate Michael Berg. None of the challengers has been elected to a political office.
Hartley-Nagle lost the Democratic primary to Spivack and was then endorsed to run by the Independent Party.
Castle, 67, who was born and raised in Wilmington, has been involved in Delaware politics since he was appointed a deputy attorney general in 1965. He has served as a state legislator, lieutenant governor and two-term governor before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1993. He lives in Wilmington with his wife Jane. Castle is a graduate of Tower Hill High School, Hamilton College and Georgetown University Law School.
Castle took nearly two weeks off the campaign trail when he suffered two minor strokes Sept. 25. He is back at work and completely recovered, he said.
Spivack, 59, of Wilmington is a senior member of the legal firm Morris James of Wilmington. He graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor of arts degree in political science and a juris doctorate from the University of Michigan Law School. While in the Navy, he served two tours in Southeast Asia. He has held offices and been involved in several community and political organizations, including involvement with several presidential campaigns. He is married to Marcia, and the couple has two grown daughters.
Hartley-Nagle, 44, of Dover, born in Bryn Mawr, Pa., is a single mother of one son and three daughters. She attended Moore College of Art, Delaware Technical & Community College and Wilmington College for art and design, human services and elementary education. She is executive director of The Nagle Foundation, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting children’s rights and reducing child abuse. She ran unsuccessfully as an Independent for the Delaware State Senate in 2004.
Berg, 61, a retired high school teacher born in Philadelphia, graduated from Bucknell with a bachelor of arts degree in English literature and earned his master’s degree from Temple University.
He has been an antiwar activist since the Vietnam War.
In 2004, the Berg family was cast into the international spotlight when their son, Nick, was captured and murdered by Iraqi militants. At the time, Berg’s son was a civilian on a mission of peace in the country.
In 2005, Berg moved from Chester County, Pa., to Wilmington where he registered as a member of the Green Party.
Politics
Castle said Congress, as a watchdog on itself, does not work. He introduced legislation – never passed - that would have provided for members of the ethics committee to be outsiders, not members of Congress. “In the most recent cases, members of Congress have been protecting themselves,” Castle said. “There needs to be a lot more focus on this subject. It’s been frustrating. Congress has dropped the ball on this matter.”
Spivack said there has never been a greater need for change in Washington. “The Republican Congress and my rubber-stamp opponent have driven a further nail in the coffin in the death of the middle class in America,” he said. “We are turning into a nation of haves and have nots and a third class of invisibles. There is no greater time for a change. If people want change, they will have to change who they send to Washington.”
Hartley-Nagle said there is a culture of corruption in the government that invades every issue. “People are asking what is Congress doing for me? They are not seeing that they are being protected. The politicians are protecting themselves. The Republican-led Congress is not working for the people, and they want change,” she said.
Berg said being a third-party candidate is an uphill struggle. “It’s hard to get elected,” he said. So far, he has been kept off the docket of two political forums in New Castle County. He said he attended one with a bumper sticker over his mouth.
Even so, he said third party candidates are getting more and more attention. “Some heads are going to be turned in Washington when they realize that too many voters believe what Berg does,” he said.
War on terrorism
Spivack said U.S. troops need to get out of Iraq. He said he would help to establish a timetable for withdrawal; continue logistics support; move troops into friendly nations in the Mideast; work with other Mideast countries through deeds not words, providing humanitarian aid to ensure stability in the area; and support U.N. efforts in Afghanistan.
“Our troops are the best and brightest,” he said. “They have won the war, but they have never been able to win the peace. We have created a lot of havoc. Now we need to try to avoid adding to the chaos. We owe that to the Iraqis. We haven’t done anything we promised we would do.”
Hartley-Nagle said she supports a phased-in withdrawal from Iraq within the next year to 18 months. “The Iraqi people don’t want us there, and there has been an escalation in the war on terrorism by us being there,” she said.
She said the United States is not a safer place since the Sept. 11 attacks. “We are going in the right direction, but we are not there yet,” she said.
She was in Kent County during a recent chemical release. “It’s clear to me, and I saw it first hand, that we are not prepared.”
Berg said there is no need for U.S. troops to be in Iraq and they should be brought home immediately. “Most common citizens knew that Bush was lying from the beginning about this war, and the truth is finally coming out,” he said. “There have been 655,000 deaths, or one death every three minutes. That’s sinful.”
He said the fear people have concerning a power vacuum left when troops pull out will exist for a while, but it is only getting worse every day. “We are less and less in control each day. The civil war is about the presence of the U.S.,” he said. He said stability will return to the country and the civil war will end once U.S. troops are gone.
“The way to fight terrorism is to not act like a terrorist, and that’s exactly what George Bush is,” he said.
Castle said people he has talked to are not sure if the war in Iraq, which he termed a stalemate, is beneficial or harmful to the war on terrorism. Castle said he supports a withdrawal of troops but not until the area is stabilized.
“Mistakes were made,” Castle said. He added that if the correct information had been given to Congress, other decisions might have been made.
“We need to rebuild the Iraqi infrastructure and train military and security forces so they can defend themselves,” he said. “We need to work toward getting out sooner rather than later.”
Concerning the war on terror, Castle said people’s awareness and vigilance have turned out to be some of the biggest weapons in war on terror.
The economy
“The economy is not growing when people are working two and three jobs, working around the clock,” said Hartley-Nagle. “Working people have no time or energy left.”
Diverting money spent on the war back to rebuilding America is one of the main platforms in the Berg campaign. “We cannot afford to be spending billions, and the real figure will be trillions of dollars, on the immoral and illegal war in Iraq. Our dollars are better spent on building than destroying,” he said.
He would propose guaranteed wages and guaranteed healthcare. He supports universal healthcare for all workers and rebuilding the mass transportation system.
“America’s wealth and power needs to be used for the general welfare, as our Constitution says, and for the real people who make up America,” Berg said.
Castle said the economy comes down to the way individuals define it. “Unemployment is down and the Dow closed at an all-time high last week, but it really comes down to individual circumstances,” he said. “When someone is not getting a wage increase or has no health insurance, that’s an issue that needs to be addressed.”
He said costs need to be cut wherever possible at the federal level; he supports a line-item veto.
Spivack said the $8.5 trillion national debt should be a concern of every American. “Our economy is going to fall off a cliff soon,” he said.
Spivack said he would roll back tax cuts for the rich, help to create a 9/11-type commission to oversee congressional capital projects to reduce pork barrel spending and set up a federal/state trust fund for ongoing projects like beach replenishment.
Education and youth
Berg, who taught for 35 years, said there needs to be a return to more federally funded education programs. “We need to return to federal support for public education. I believe in public education,” he said.
Castle said he plans to redraft legislation as part of the No Child Left Behind Act to deal with a deficit in the current legislation. He wants a growth model added to assess the progress of students with handicaps and students for whom English is a foreign language.
“We do not need to exempt these students but to get a measurement of their growth,” he said.
Spivack called the No Child Left Behind Act a failure because it was not fully funded and it does not incorporate the true role of the teacher in the classroom. He has proposed an individualized education plan for students to gauge their progress and would propose legislation to be based on the first responders in educations: the teachers.
Hartley-Nagle said protecting children is one of her top priorities. She is joining with others across the nation taking the War on Child Predators Challenge urging Congress to approve an additional $1 billion per year to mount a war on child pornography and sexual predators.
The environment
Castle supports the need for energy conservation and the development of alternative sources of energy. He said building power plants is not the only or best answer to the country’s energy woes. The energy crisis should be addressed by adopting conservation practices and alternative sources such as geothermal, solar and wind energy as well as fuel cells and fusion technology, he said.
“We must make conservation easier and economical for consumers. One way to reduce our dependency on foreign oil is to stress development of more energy-efficient vehicles by offering tax credits for hybrid cars,” he said.
He said he voted against the Gas Act, which gave tax breaks to oil companies. “Right steps are being taken, but there is a lot more we need to do,” he said.
Spivack said a comprehensive energy independence strategy should have been developed years ago, and he faults both parties for their failure on this issue. He sees a nexus between the environment and energy conservation.
“First, we need to get oil companies to use their profits to invest in alternative energy sources, such as biodiesel in Delaware,” he said. He added that biodiesel cooperatives would help to establish the industry in Delaware and keep the profits in the farmers’ hands.
Hartley-Nagle said many of the key environmental issues in the state are not being addressed, especially those affecting people’s health. She said Delaware is among the leaders in the nation in cancer death rates, infant mortality and asthma, which she says is tied to environmental factors including pollution.
“We need to wean ourselves off dirty energy. I’m sold on wind farms off the coast; that seems to be the way to go,” she said. “We need to put health before wealth.”
She said the bar needs to be raised for power plants to clean up emissions, and federal funds need to be in place.
Berg said oil companies hold one of the keys to the energy crisis. “There needs to be a switch in incentives to oil companies from oil exploration to research and development for sustainable energy such as solar, wind and biofuels,” he said.
Immigration
Spivack said the immigration issue is a complex one with no easy answers. He said one of the House
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top priorities should be to get control of the borders with increased border patrol and fences “where it makes sense.”
“Then everybody should be registered, and you risk being sent back if you don’t meet the deadline,” he said.
He said a moratorium on immigrants needs to in place until immigrants are registered and the proper status is applied to them. He added that the U.S. needs to “get tough with Mexico” and tough on companies hiring illegal immigrants.
Hartley-Nagle said the immigration system needs to be overhauled. “There is a need for comprehensive immigration reform that takes in human and economic factors as well as the rule of law,” she said.
The first step is to secure the borders and then look for ways to improve conditions in other countries, she said.
“We need to investigate the unintended consequences of NAFTA and other factors undermining Mexican and other Central American economies,” she said.
Hartley-Nagle said immigration laws need to be enforced, but the “current catch and release program” needs to be reformed.
Berg, who said he is a third generation immigrant, looks at the immigration issue from a different viewpoint.
“I think we need to open the borders completely,” he said. He added, before that can occur, there needs to a level playing field in trade agreements throughout the world so that conditions are improved for workers in countries losing workers to the United States. He said there also needs to be a crackdown on employers who are paying substandard wages. “We are all immigrants and to label some of us illegal is atrocious,” he said.
Castle agrees there is not a simple solution. He said he supports more security along the Mexico border. “And I think we will see a fence before it’s all said and done,” he said.
He said Congress should pay “a lot of attention to the issue,” but struggles with immigration issues because of the legal ramifications. He said the issuance of more worker permits could be a remedial step in the right direction.
According to Federal Election Commission reports as of Sept. 30, the candidates had the following amounts of money on hand: Castle, $1.3 million; Spivack, $42,438; and Berg, $5,528. There were no reports on file for Harley-Nagle.
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