Why Should Delaware Care?
Michael Castle was one of the longest-serving elected officials in Delaware history and the last Republican to hold a prominent statewide position. He died Thursday, leaving behind a lasting legacy of public service.
Michael Castle, the last Republican to be elected by Delawareans to serve as governor and their representative in Congress, died Thursday at age 86.
His four-decade tour of public service also included terms as lieutenant governor and both chambers of the Delaware General Assembly. By the time his public career ended in 2010, he was Delaware’s longest serving congressman at nine terms, spanning the 1990s and 2000s.
In extending the “Delaware Way” attitude of bipartisanship started by his predecessor, Gov. Pete du Pont, and a focus on economic development and fiscal conservatism, Castle became synonymous with a generation of the Republican Party in Delaware.
His political downfall in a stunning primary election defeat to Christine O’Donnell has become a turning point in Delaware’s history as well, with Democrats having won every high-profile statewide race since.
A history of service
Born in Wilmington in 1939, Michael Newbold Castle was a descendant of Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin and Daniel Carroll. He followed his father’s footsteps in becoming a lawyer, joining the city firm Connolly, Bove and Lodge after graduating from college.
It was there that he met the late Carl Schnee, who would become a lifelong friend and business partner – together they owned the famous Dewey Beach bar and music venue Bottle & Cork for a time.
Castle would later become a deputy attorney general, but grew restless of the work in the Court of Common Pleas, deciding to run for the state House of Representatives.
In 1966, he won his first campaign – it began a stretch of decades of wins that didn’t end until his final race.
Though he stood an imposing 6 feet, 4 inches and had a competitive streak on the ballfield or basketball court, he also had a genial approach to the public that endeared him to Delaware.
“Castle could be insightful, funny or out of sorts, but never disingenuous or ponderous. He always said what he thought,” wrote journalist and historian Celia Cohen in her seminal book, “Only in Delaware.”
He won a term in the House and two in the State Senate, where he became Minority Leader. At age 37, he decided to leave the legislature, however, and return to his law practice. It would be short-lived.
Then-Gov. du Pont recruited him to run for lieutenant governor amid a Reagan-era wave for the Republican Party. It was a life-changing decision that led to a career in public service.
The governorship
When Castle won the governorship in 1984, he inherited a state that was on firm fiscal ground and flush with economic opportunity on the back of the credit card boom.
Over two-terms stretching to 1992, he managed to cut income taxes three times, create the Transportation Trust Fund that still today funds maintenance and improvements to the state’s roads, and pass the Delaware Agricultural Lands Preservation Act to protect farmland from development.
Through all of that time, he did so with a divided statehouse where Republicans controlled the House and Democrats the Senate, only underscoring the era of bipartisanship in Delaware.
Robert Perkins, who served as Castle’s chief of staff for the first two years of his gubernatorial term, said the late governor primarily sought to continue the progress that started with his predecessor.
“But Mike also had passions of his own. He started an education initiative when he first came into office called ‘Focus on the First 60 Months,’ meaning the first 60 months of a child’s life. That was 40 years ago and we’re still talking about that today,” he said.
Michael Ratchford, who served with Castle for 11 years, including as campaign manager, Secretary of State and then chief of staff, remembered him as “a down-to-earth person and a very hard worker, who took his official responsibilities and the job very seriously, but he didn’t take himself seriously.”
“On the weekends, he really loved to go out to things like the St Anthony’s Festival or civic association carnivals or the Brandywine Arts Festival, and just sort of wander around and talk with people. That was his way of connecting, and that was a source of strength and information for him,” Ratchford recalled.
The approach worked. In running for re-election in 1988, he achieved a historic modern landslide win with nearly 71% of the vote.
Castle’s gubernatorial term is not particularly remembered for scandal or controversy. His transportation secretary, Kermit Justice, was ensnared in a bribery scheme by federal investigators over a land deal, and his veto of legislation to allow slot machines in the state in 1989 was also unpopular in the statehouse.
Move to Congress
As Castle neared the end of his term as governor, his options for further public service narrowed. Delaware’s Sens. Joe Biden and Bill Roth Jr. were wildly popular, but the state’s young congressman, Tom Carper, had plans to run for the governorship.
It led Castle to run for Congress, cementing a moment in Delaware known as “The Swap,” where Carper and Castle would switch roles.
For Perkins and Ratchford, the idea that “The Swap” was agreed to by the politicians is simply a bit of “entertaining urban myth.” Nonetheless, Delaware voters supported the move by the incumbents.
In Washington, D.C., through the Clinton and Bush eras, Castle found his voice as a centrist Republican. He served critical roles late in his service, chairing a subcommittee on education reform amid President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind initiative.
Castle earned the nickname “The Coinage Congressman” for his support of new, collectible U.S. coins, including series that marked U.S. presidents and the 50 states. He also secured federal funding to help build a public trail stretching the length of the C&D Canal, which today bears his name.
Michael Quaranta, who served as Castle’s chief of staff in Congress from 2003 to 2010, said that Castle’s experience as a governor helped him bring a unique viewpoint to the House of Representatives, where it was rare.
“Legislating is conceptual for those who’ve not had that experience, and it’s very, very practical and real for the few that have. And so I think he brought a very different, pragmatic perspective to conversations that, frankly, frustrated some of his colleagues,” he recalled.
Castle also brought his independence to D.C., and often broke with his party on social issues, including voting for abortion measures and for the repeal of the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy for LGTBQ+ service members.
“Those were some challenging conversations, because, as his chief of staff, I was trying to measure what the future impact would be,” Quaranta said. “But he was – and I mean this in the most complimentary way – troubled by the facts.”
The defeat
When Castle ran for the U.S. Senate in 2010, seeking to replace Ted Kaufman, who had temporarily filled Joe Biden’s longtime seat after he was elected vice president, it was considered an almost foregone conclusion that he would win.
He faced a primary challenge from the newcomer O’Donnell and a potential general election match-up with then-New Castle County Executive Chris Coons. But this was no ordinary election year.
Dismayed at the election of Barack Obama and the bailout of banks and automakers, the Tea Party political movement began backing grassroots challengers to longtime Republicans. The national fundraising arm of the movement seized on Castle’s race, backing O’Donnell and spending widely on ads that targeted Castle.
Up until the last week’s of the primary campaign, Castle still felt sure of yet another electoral victory, but was shell-shocked on Sept. 14, 2010, when O’Donnell won in a 7-point victory.
In a reflective Delaware Today interview two years later, he called the loss “a wound to the Republican Party” in the state, “in terms of both fundraising and recruiting candidates for office.”
He was right. The Republican Party has struggled to field competitive candidates in Delaware in the years since, and Delaware has increasingly become a Democratic stronghold.
Legacy of service
Castle’s Democratic successor, Coons, actually volunteered as a teenager for his first political campaign to support Castle.
“Getting to know Mike then, he was kind, genuine, civically minded, responsible – an old-fashioned Republican,” the senator said in a statement Thursday. “Over the arc of the more than 40 years that I knew him – I met him when I was 16 – he repeatedly provided his knowledge and expertise to help me along my own way.”
For Carper, the other half of Castle’s famous swap, their political differences never interfered with a friendship or collegiality that sought to serve the public. Carper would go on to serve in the U.S. Senate alongside Castle in the House after his own governorship.
“We were united by our shared love for Delaware, and a determination to leave it better than we found it. His legacy is etched into the fabric of our state – from the schools and institutions he championed, to the civility and collaboration he modeled every day. But above all, he leaves behind an example of a life well-lived in public service and in private kindness,” he said in a statement.
Former President Biden, who served alongside Castle as contemporaries for decades and rode the Amtrak train to D.C. together as they worked in Congress, said that “there’s one word that comes to mind when I think of Mike Castle: dignity.”
“Mike was defined by his integrity, and for that reason, you couldn’t find another member of Congress who would say a bad word about him. He was respected in Washington, and beloved by his constituents,” Biden said in a statement Thursday. “Mike had a backbone made of steel, and when faced with that existential question politicians sometimes face — What are you willing to lose an election over? — Mike stood on principle. He took votes because he knew they were right, not because they were popular.”