The House Is My Castle? Delaware GOP-er In Tough Decision

One of the reasons the 2010 Senate race in Delaware has given Republicans hope is that Mike Castle, the state's at-large House member, is considering running.

Castle is extremely popular with members of both parties. He won a ninth term last year with 61 percent of the vote -- not his best showing ever, but remember, it was a year when Joe Biden was on the Democratic national ticket as well as seeking a seventh Senate term.

Biden, of course, was victorious in both of his races. When he resigned his Senate seat, he was succeeded by longtime aide Ted Kaufman, who immediately said he wouldn't run to hold the seat in the 2010 special election.

Of course he wouldn't. Kaufman, as everyone knows, is keeping the seat warm for state Attorney General Beau Biden, son of Joe, who is currently serving with the Delaware National Guard in Iraq. It's never been expressly said that young Biden will run for the Senate, but few doubt that's what's in the cards.

(For the record, the vice president himself has said in the past he would love Beau to succeed him in the Senate.)

That's where Castle comes in. Prior to his winning the House seat in 1992, he was a two-term governor and, before that, lieutenant governor. In 2000, more than a few Republicans tried to talk Sen. Bill Roth (R) into retiring, to let Castle come in and try to hold the seat for the GOP. Roth refused. He ran for a sixth term and was soundly beaten by Democrat Tom Carper. There seems to be little question that Castle would have been a stronger candidate for the Republicans.

Now the 2010 Senate race is nearly upon us. Castle, who said he would never challenge Joe Biden or Tom Carper, is presented with an open seat. He would be, without question, the strongest -- and perhaps the only viable -- candidate the GOP could put up against young Biden. Better put, if Castle didn't run, the seat would probably be rated safe Democratic.

House Republican leaders clearly want him to stay put. Roll Call's Jackie Kucinich reports that House Republicans offered Castle the position of ranking member of the Education and Labor Committee. Castle considered the offer before rejecting it early this morning. Kucinich writes about the GOP dilemma:

House Republicans have found it particularly hard to hold on to moderate Members like Castle, who is among a handful of center-right lawmakers who are seriously considering leaving to run for a higher office.

Nine House Republicans have already announced plans to run for Senate seats or governorships.

"There's not much [leadership] can offer other than ranking member positions or committee assignments, outside of help with fundraising," said Carl Forti, president of Black Rock Group and former communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee. "You can always try to play the loyalty card, but that works better on retirements rather than those running for a Senate seat."

Even Castle acknowledged that the ranking member seat is not the juiciest enticement to stay in the House. "This is a big decision," Castle said. "The chairmanship is one thing, but the ranking member [position] is another."

Since the ability to offer any incentive to stay in the House is a rarity for the minority party, leaders sometime have only intangibles to put on the table.

"The only thing you can offer them is hope," said former Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), who retired in 2008.

Davis said that in 2000, during his tenure at the NRCC, with Republicans in the majority, he was surprised at the ability of Democrats to persuade their Members to put off retirement.

Tom O'Donnell, former chief of staff to House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt (Mo.) and managing partner at Gephardt Government Affairs, said the state of the party and the chances of winning back the majority play into whether a Member can be talked into staying in the House.

"I think people thought that we had a pretty good shot at winning the place back [in 2000]," O'Donnell said, a sentiment that helped keep Democrats from retiring that year.

With the GOP chances of winning back the majority slim, Members mulling retirement must decide whether they want to weather life in the minority until the political tide shifts again in their favor.

The Delaware Watch political blog notes today that Castle's refusal to take the ranking position on Education and Labor seems to indicate

a strong signal that he has decided to run for the US Senate. While he is still not saying what he plans to do (and retirement remains an outside possibility), this decision suggests that he plans to go for Joe Biden's old seat in the US Senate.

If he does, Delaware will be one of the key Senate races to watch in 2010. If he doesn't, it won't be.

For the record -- and we keep these kind of records here at Political Junkie -- the last time Republicans took a Senate seat away from the Democrats in Delaware was in 1960, when, as you all remember, J. Caleb Boggs (R) ousted Dem incumbent J. Allen Frear.