Congressional hopeful visits Sussex Dems

By Sam Harvey
Staff Reporter

	Coastal Point • SAM HARVEY Dennis Spivak speaks at the CHEER Community Center.

Dennis Spivack, the Democrats’ candidate to challenge long-time Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Mike Castle, stopped in Georgetown on March 7 to visit with local supporters.

Between 30 and 40 people stopped by the CHEER Community Center to help Spivack kick off his campaign.

Staffer Allison Taylor Levine seemed excited, characterizing Spivack as a very viable candidate in this race. He’ll have to be — Castle defended his incumbency against Democratic challenger Paul Donnelly by a better than two-to-one margin in 2004.

Before that, he defeated Democrat Michael Miller by similar margins, in 2002 and 2000, and before that, Democrat Dennis Williams, again two-to-one.

Some might give Spivack credit if he just avoids another blow-out. But with President George W. Bush’s administration weathering below-40-percent approval ratings, all bets are off for Republicans nationwide, and things could go differently this time.

While Spivack acknowledged Castle as an honest and decent individual, he wasted no time in characterizing him as an administration man, tying his name not only to Bush but also to Vice President Dick Cheney and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

Spivack called Castle a “rubber-stamper of Bush/Cheney/DeLay policies.”

“Policies that alienate us from one another,” he added, citing a need for change. Spivack said Castle claimed to be a moderate Republican, but had supported $56 billion in Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and $39 billion in Bush spending cuts to social programs.

He spoke briefly on health care, noting 100,000 Delawareans with no coverage.

“But that’s only one part of the national disgrace of 45 million Americans who live day-to-day without any health care coverage,” he said. Spivack said he planned to work on that, but also to shift funding away from a “bloated bureaucracy, and back to the bedside.”

On energy, he decried the pending electricity rate hikes as outrageous.

“Deregulation of a critical component of our national economy — in this case, power – should not leave Delawareans burdened and broke,” he said. He emphasized the need for renewable energy sources, and the need to devote additional resources to developing them.

At the same time, Spivack also said he would commit to policies “that bring spending under control and do it in a way that does not hurt our nation’s most vulnerable citizens.”

And finally, on Iraq, while commending America’s “brave and courageous troops,” he said they were stuck fighting a “bitter and confusing war.”

Spivack said the conflict had achieved little, and the country needed to stop participating in actions around the world that “fanned the flames of anti-American sentiment.” If elected, he said, he would work to “bring them home, in a responsible manner.”

Spivack, a Wilmington native, graduated the University of Pennsylvania in 1969, with a bachelor’s degree in political science. He served two tours in Southeast Asia, as a communications/intelligence officer with the U.S. Navy, including time spent in hostile waters off the coast of Vietnam.

He returned to his studies after the war, earning his juris doctor (JD) from the University of Michigan Law School in 1975. Spivack worked for the state attorney general’s office in the late 1970s, then for various law firms.

He continues his law career with Morris, James, Hitchens & Williams, where he is a partner and a transactional attorney. He’s been active with the Democratic party, assisting various campaigns and most recently, Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 bid for the presidency.

For more information, visit www.spivackforcongress.org on the Internet.