Posted: Feb. 28, 2008

RUMORS OF JUDGE DEL PESCO'S CANDIDACY ARE GREATLY EXAGGERATED 

By Celia Cohen
Grapevine Political Writer

No one was more surprised that Judge Susan Del Pesco, as she returned very late Wednesday from a two-week vacation, to find out that Delaware was aflame with speculation she was running for governor.

Now hear this! She is not!

Del Pesco is retiring in May from the Superior Court, where she has served for 20 years, but it is not to ride to the rescue of the Republican Party, which is desperate for someone to run for governor.

"I intend to try a lot of new things in retirement, but that does not include running for public office," she said in a telephone call she made Thursday to Delaware Grapevine to get the word out.

"I have never in my entire life thought about running for public office."

Del Pesco was at a loss to explain how the rumor was started. She said her husband Tom checked their telephone messages when they returned home from Palm Springs and discovered she was the talk of politics.

"That was the first I ever knew of it," Del Pesco said.

They laughed, but by the next morning, it seemed a lot less funny amid a firestorm of blogging and talk radio that had Del Pesco as the Republican answer to either Lt. Gov. John Carney or Treasurer Jack Markell, whoever wins the Democratic primary for governor.

All that Del Pesco could think of was that she had seen Terry Strine, the Republican state chair, over the holidays and mentioned to him that she might like to work on a campaign once she retired. In politics, comments like that sometimes are enough to lead people to add two and two together to get seven.

"I said maybe I'll get involved in a political campaign," Del Pesco said, " but I never meant my own."

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