Delaware can finally boast of having a president
WILMINGTON, Delaware: Imagine a place that seems less a state than a fabled land hatched from Aesop or the Brothers Grimm. A microbe on the map, a Mid-Atlantic territory of onlys, we-don’t-have-thats and so much poultry.
Only three counties, two major universities, one US House representative, a solitary area code. No professional sports teams, no major television stations, no large commercial airports, no mountains, no valleys. Ninety-six miles in length, 35 miles at its widest, nine miles at its narrowest, 609 times more chickens than people. But - take that, doubters! - it boasts Joseph R. Biden Jr., the future 46th president of the United States.
Welcome to lovely little Delaware. First state to ratify the Constitution; often last when recalling all 50. An overshadowed state, not known for much in particular, except chemicals, credit cards and other corporations, consistently overshadowed by its more boisterous neighbors. An understated state that, for many years, featured welcome signs with the slogan “Home of Tax-Free Shopping.”
Now, Delaware will become the smallest state, in land mass and population, a smidgen shy of a million, to send a citizen to the White House. ( Chester Arthur and Calvin Coolidge were born in Vermont, but eventually hailed from New York and Massachusetts, respectively.) Residents are jubilant, bragging, rapping and dancing on social media about their state, letting folks know that it is no longer Dela-where?
“We tend to be proud about little things because we don’t have any big stuff, but this is pretty big,” says lobbyist and former state Democratic Party chair Richard Bayard, a seventhgeneration Delawarean.
Delaware: finally home to pretty big stuff.
Bayard is descended from five Delaware US senators, one governor and a congressman, the sort of thing that can happen in Delaware. He’s also related to du Ponts. The state is rich in descendants of gunpowder grandee Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours, who founded the chemical giant. The name is associated with so many legacy institutions that greater Wilmington could be called du Pontville.
The big city of Wilmington (70,166) is far smaller in population than nearby suburban Philadelphia counties. Google the town, and North Carolina’s version elbows its way to the top. Downtown Wilmington resembles a random exurb, except for the clump of drab buildings blistered with bank logos and I-95 cleaving the place in two.
Everything is pretty much next to everything else in this surprisingly hilly town. The Blue Rocks, not to be confused with the University of Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens, play minor league baseball in a downtown stadium. Next door is the Chase Center. On Nov 7, its parking lot became the Biden-Harris drivein celebratory amphitheater. Both are situated on the city’s riverfront, which is scenic and small like so many things in Delaware. The riverfront is blocks from the Joseph R. Biden Jr. Railroad Station, named for Amtrak’s ardent patron. Now that he’s won the presidency, he may never use it again.
Wayne and Garth in the movie “Wayne’s World” draw blanks when trying to think of anything to say about the state. Here’s some of the things Delawareans want outsiders to know: The top of Delaware is the 12-mile Circle (technically, it’s an arc), dates back to a 1682 land grant made by the Duke of York and cuts into the Jersey side’s low water mark of the Delaware River, sparking a history of legal disputes between the states that have occasionally reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
On a single day, June 15, 1776, Delaware declared its independence from Britain and Pennsylvania. It was originally named the Assembly of the Lower Counties of Pennsylvania. It’s been called a northern state with a Southern disposition. It has glorious beaches: Bethany, Dewey, Fenwick and Rehoboth, home of the amusement park and arcade Funland.
Bob Marley lived in Wilmington for a while, in a redbrick rowhome on North Tatnall Street and worked as the Chrysler plant in Newark. (Which is pronounced New-ark not New-work, New Jersey’s biggest city.)
Two years ago, the Wilmington News Journal asked readers to name the most famous Delawarean. Aubrey Plaza, of “Parks and Rec,” won by a landslide.
Biden, who moved with his family from Scranton to Claymont, Del., at age 10, came in a distant sixth.
Possibly, this is because “an awful lot of people in Delaware have met Joe Biden,” says historian Dick Carter, chairman of the Delaware Heritage Commission. “Everyone knows everyone. It’s one degree of separation, maybe less.”
The state’s political orbit is so minuscule that it’s possible for one man, Tom Carper, to hit an elective trifecta in less than two decades: congressman, governor and now US senator. Carper basically swapped jobs with Mike Castle, who went from governor to the US House of Representatives (this happens in Delaware) before running in 2010 for Biden’s vacated senate seat. Castle lost the GOP nomination to tea party activist and blurt-meister Christine O’Donnell.
Remember the season of the witch? O’Donnell told Bill Maher “I dabbled in witchcraft,” which spurred her to run a campaign ad announcing “I am not a witch,” which was parodied on “Saturday Night Live.” She lost to Democrat and Biden ally Chris Coons.
That’s the sort of thing that, before Biden’s election, put Delaware on the map for a moment.