Bill Lee
Bill Lee has a long history of public service in the First State. In 1977, Governor Pete duPont appointed him as an Associate Judge in the Delaware Family Court. In 1986, Governor Mike Castle appointed Lee to the Delaware Superior Court. Governor Castle appointed Lee Resident Judge of Sussex County three years later.
Bill was born on December 18, 1935, to Dr. Walter H. Lee and his wife Virginia while his father was attending medical school. He attended school in Middletown, Delaware and graduated from Wilmington Friends School in 1953. He later graduated from Duke University and The University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he earned a law degree in 1960.
Bill has four grown children: Carey, Brud, Ginger, and Jeb; and six grandsons: Will, Chip, and George Cross; Nicholas Calabrese; and Jack and Swain Lee.
Education: Delaware's school children need a Governor who has the political independence to say that we will pour no more money into a broken education system until we've fixed it, until teachers and administrators are held accountable, not just our children. Health: Delawareans do not want the state making their health care decisions, they want to make them with the counsel of their doctor. The principles that should drive our effort to improve health care in Delaware are personal ownership, choice and competition. Environment: Delawareans deserve better than a Governor who lets the big corporations run wild and pollute our air and water with no consequences. In my administration, there will be consequences. We will also double the number of air quality monitoring stations. Public Safety: Crime is on the rise, and police and other first responders must be strengthened and increased in number. This means renewed recruitment, training and retention efforts. Corrections is still a critical problem with no progress over the past four years. Economy: To restart our economy, it will take investment in the right areas; a driven, focused effort and a full overhaul of our state government. Our focus must first be on small businesses, our leading employers, and those struggling in today's economy.
Jack Markell
Jack Markell was re-elected to a third term as State Treasurer in November 2006 with an overwhelming 70% of the vote. He attracted more votes than any other Democrat on the ballot in Delaware in 1998, 2002, and 2006. Markell was named one of the “100 Rising Stars” of the Democratic Party at the 2000 Democratic National Convention, and The New Democrat Magazine included Jack in a 2000 profile of 10 innovative leaders from around the country under the age of 40.
Jack served as the most recent past chairman of the Metropolitan Wilmington Urban League Executive Board from June 2005 until December 2006.
Jack entered politics after a successful career in the private sector. Markell helped grow a company of 13 people called Fleet Call into the company now known as Nextel (he coined the name “Nextel”). Markell has also been a banker at First Chicago Corporation, a consultant at McKinsey and Company, and a senior executive at Comcast Corporation.
Jack was born and raised in Newark, DE. He and his wife Carla – who is also a Newark native – graduated together from Newark High School. She and Jack have two children, Molly and Michael. Jack has an undergraduate degree in economics and development studies from Brown University and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
Education: Markell will establish an education system where every child arrives ready to learn & every teenager graduates ready to succeed. He will scrap the DSTP because it profits the company that makes it instead of helping students, teachers and parents. Health: Markell's universal health care plan will ensure every Delaware has affordable, quality health insurance right away. His plan focuses on cost containment while at the same time covering the more-than 100,000 Delawareans who do not have health insurance. Environment: Markell wants to create what he calls the ecology economy, where the state’s economic development goals would be combined with environmental protection. He wants to make Delaware a leader in clean, renewable energy and energy conservation. Public Safety: Markell released a plan that will put 200 additional officers on the street and keep drunk drivers off our roads. He’ll also increase efforts to prevent domestic abuse by extending protective orders to 2 years and create an Office for Victims of Crime. Economy: Markell’s TIME plan (Turning Ideas into Meaningful Employment) will take the economy in a new direction and create 25,000 new high-wage jobs in his 1st term by combining the resources of schools, businesses, banks, agricultural community and government.
Mike Protack
Born into a working class family in New Castle County, Delaware, I learned during my formative years the values that have both guided my life’s direction and influenced my decision to run for Governor of Delaware in 2008: self-reliance, freedom, leadership, integrity, and family love and support. Although my parents had limited financial resources, they believed that a solid education leads to success and made sure that I graduated from William Penn High School (1975). Unfortunately they couldn’t financially support my decision to attend college, but they did provide emotional and spiritual support for my determination to find the means to graduate from the University of Delaware (1979) with a B.A. degree in International Relations. After college, joining the United States Marine Corp. to serve our country provided outstanding opportunities for me to develop exemplary leadership and operational skills. Since becoming a pilot in the military and a civilian pilot, I have flown 15 types of aircrafts and accumulated over 11,000 accident and incident free flying hours. Whenever I board a plane, I know that my passengers have placed their trust in me to secure and protect them while transporting them to their final destination.
As parents, Mary Ann and I wanted our two sons, Clinton and Kevin to be guided by the same principles that our parents instilled in us—integrity, self-reliance, community and family support. Clinton who is married will finish medical school in Rochester, NY, in the spring of 2008 and Kevin is a senior at Archmere Academy. Both are committed to their educations, to being involved in their communities and to maintaining close contact with their parents.
Participation in a variety of philanthropic organizations (Rotary Club, Boy Scouts of America, and the American Legion) and affiliation with Ducks Unlimited and the National Rifle Association provided me with a deep understanding of how the decisions made at the top level of state governance affect the residents. Although I wish to believe that those we have entrusted to administer our state government are guided by their sense of responsibility to act in accordance with the trust we have placed in them, I am losing confidence in the decisions our current Delaware leaders are making on our behalf.
Education: Change school funding to support the needs of the students in the school not a bureaucratic formula. Student testing should be done at beginning and end of year with a smaller test with quicker results. Health: A universal health plan with a single large pool for all of Delaware covered by a Basic Plan modeled after the Blue Cross plan for state employees. The plan would cover every resident. Environment: We have a plan to use expanded tax credits to bring renewable and alternative energy to 20% of all farms, homes and businesses in Delaware to produce 20% of all energy needs by 2020. Public Safety: We favor obtaining Homeland Security dollars to bring hand held devices which can cross reference federal data bases for enhanced local security. To slow gun violence we favor using state of the art Economy: We favor redirecting a small portion of the Delaware State Pension Fund, 1/2 of 1% of the $6-billion fund which would put $30 billion towards local and regional business development.
