Delaware Senate race to add independent candidate

Alex Pires had two of the most captive bully pulpits to make his views known in the last two weeks.

On May 23rd he told a national audience he was running for the U.S. Senate. On Saturday he told those gathered at the Bottle and Cork, which he owns, the same thing.

Pires wants to be added to the November ballot for the seat now held by incumbent Senator Tom Carper (D-Delaware). According to the News Journal, he’ll need signatures from one percent of the voters in Delaware.

Pires went to the Fox News Channel on May 23rdto state his case with Greta Van Susteren. The Fox News host said she was friends with both Pires and his wife. They spent over three minutes discussing his views. During that time they never mentioned Carper by name.

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Pires said on the show, and on stage at the Dewey bar Saturday night that senator’s are over paid. He said they only work 140 days a year and should only be paid for their time on the job. He said that would change the culture in Washington.

Pires said on TV there are many independents in Washingtonsuch as John Chafee, the late senator from Rhode Island and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Sanders and Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman are the only independents currently in the senate. Pires calls himself a fiscal conservation and liberal on social issues such as children.

He told the Bottle and Cork crowd Saturday that Carper had been in office too long. He says if elected he would only serve one 6 year term. 

To date, Carper has one democratic challenger in the September 11thprimary. Keith Spanarelli of Middletown has filed papers to run. According to delawareliberal.net, he has a website which shows a button reading donate here.

Republican businessman Kevin Wade has filed papers for the U.S. Carper filed his paperwork this past week and has his campaign website up as well.

In their Sunday story the News Journal quotes “The Cook Political Report”, a nonpartisan news letter as suggesting Carper’s seat was one of the safest in the country.

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