Television viewers seeking a respite from the sturm and drang of Sunday morning political roundtables might do well to tune in to WHYY-TV’s Delaware Tonight (5:30 p.m., Monday-Friday, Channel 12). That’s where you’ll find Chipman L. “Chip” Flowers and Dennis Rochford, two political pundits who have an easy, bantering relationship that belies their differing political perspectives.

Flowers, the Democrat, is president of Flowers Counsel Group LLC, a team of attorneys with offices on Market Street who work with businesses, corporations, and nonprofits. Active in Democratic politics for many years, Flowers worked for Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition and was a delegate to the 2004 Democratic National Convention and Delaware advisor to John Kerry’s presidential campaign. This year, he worked on Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination.

Rochford, the Republican, is president of the Maritime Exchange for the Delaware River and Bay, a nonprofit trade association serving port businesses throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. He was chief administrative officer for New Castle County from 1985 to ’87, and made unsuccessful bids for lieutenant governor in 1992 and 2000.

Rochford has been offering his political views on Delaware Tonight since 1994. Flowers joined him in 2003. They’ve become friends, regularly retiring to a local watering hole for an adult beverage or two after broadcasts. What’s more, their opinions on state and national politics are often surprisingly similar, as evidenced during an interview in early June at the WHYY studios in downtown Wilmington.

Chip Flowers: Right now I think it’s too close to call. My guess is that the lieutenant governor has the inside track. But that being said, Jack Markell surely has the skills, the ability to govern the state, so I think it’s all going to be about mobilization—who can mobilize the resources on election day and set forth a policy agenda that will carry the state forward over the course of the next four years. Get out the vote, that’s what it comes down to—GOTV.

Dennis Rochford: I agree with Chip. I think John Carney, because he’s the lieutenant governor, has so many endorsements that he has the inside track. To Chip’s point of turnout, if it’s a 20 percent turnout, which is traditionally what a statewide Democratic-contested primary has been over the years, that advantage is Carney. If it’s a high turnout—30, 35, 40 percent—that would advantage Markell, because Markell has got certainly more financial resources than Carney. I think at the end of the day, it will be very close.

DR: Yes, he has the support of the Republican Party. He’s paired himself with [State Sen.] Charlie Copeland [candidate for lieutenant governor]. There’s a lot more enthusiasm in the Republican Party now [and] there was not any of that six weeks ago. Bill Lee has been a candidate before—a credible candidate. He should do OK in the primary. [Mike] Protack for the first time, however, is getting significant press coverage because he started early, and because the Republicans hadn’t decided on a candidate, he’s gotten visibility he hadn’t gotten before. But I think at the end of the day Bill Lee wins it.

CF: I agree with Dennis on all that, but I think the key race in this election cycle is going to be Copeland vs. [Democrat Matt] Denn [for lieutenant governor].

DR: I think that is going to shape up to be a good head-to-head race. Denn has been elected once statewide, and he’s been insurance commissioner, so he’s got a constituency out there. Charlie Copeland has been in the state senate for six years, he’s very articulate and very energetic and he’ll have resources available, so I think that’s the race to watch.

DR: A much better chance today than six weeks ago. It’s a function of three things: No. 1 is how intense the primary is between Carney and Markell, [No. 2 is] how much money Lee and Copeland are able to raise and how aggressive they are in their campaigning, and the third and final factor is, it’s a presidential year and the turnout is going to be up. Are the people going to come out to vote for one party over the other, or are they going to come out and vote their preference in all the races? The bottom line is, today I think the advantage going into November is to the Democrats. But I am fairly confident it will be a competitive race.

CF: And I can concur with that. One, I think it’s a bad year to be a Republican, just in general. It’s an uphill battle. And going back, I think Copeland-Denn will be key because I think it will really give the voters a chance to see what the future of both parties looks like and make a determination. Turnout is probably going to be high, is my guess.

DR: Yes, I think Obama will drive that.

Note: In Delaware, the governor and lieutenant governor do not run as a ticket. As a result, in several administrations in Delaware’s recent history, the two office-holders came from different parties. Such a pairing could happen with this election.

CF: I think Gov. Minner, to her credit, has taken on some controversial issues, such as the smoking ban and her position against expanding gaming. In her first term, she was very aggressive, and then in her second term she kind of pulled back a lot and focused on more safe events like education and full-day kindergarten. I think there’s enough for the Democrats to build upon. I think a lot of the political-liability issues were really 2004 issues. I don’t think there are really any hot-button ’08 issues that the Democrats are going to by shying away from, like McCain is shying away from Bush.

DR: I agree with that. If you look at the eight years Gov. Minner was the governor, four, maybe five of her years state revenues were off, so she’s had the challenge—unlike the previous administration—to button up the operating and capital budgets, where revenues have been soft. On the political front, for every action there’s a reaction. No doubt that Markell is running against the Minner/Carney administration, and the reaction to that in my view will make the Democratic organization, Gov. Minner, and all the people who are supporting Carney work harder for him. That is probably the one dynamic going into the primary election that might have some bearing on the outcome.

CF: I think Obama’s chances are good. There is a concern about whether or not he is going to be able to flip red states. And at the same time, keeping the power in the Northeast. There is a concern there. There is some concern about working-class families; he’s not drawing them in for some reason. Maybe that’s something that can be picked up with the vice-president nomination. But that being said, I think this is the perfect year for him to become president. Look at the economy; you have a Republican candidate shying away from the administration, which I think is going to bite him in the end, and also you have a Republican nominee who is for an unpopular war. So I think those factors combined could be just enough elements to put him into office, despite his relatively few years of national exposure.

DR: I think he’s a political phenomenon. He took on the strongest political organization in either party in the last quarter-century and won. He generates a lot of enthusiasm. Now, I do think at the end of the day, the way you get yourself elected president of the United States is you gotta win 270 electoral votes. My sense of it is there are probably five blue states and five red that are potentially going to be in play. And Obama I think will have challenges getting the votes he needs, particularly some of those states Hillary Clinton was strong in—Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc. If it’s just a great big wave for Obama, then it won’t matter. But if it settles down into this state-by-state competitive race based on this issue and that issue, then McCain could be competitive.

CF: What’s interesting is, if this election comes down to state-by-state, what we could be seeing is a reshaping of the entire political map. I heard McCain today going into the Northeast to try to peel off Clinton voters on the logic that, when asked “experience or change,” what did the Northeast want? Experience. And Obama is working in Virginia, one of the traditional red states—mind you, not the hard Texas [type] red states. But these are the people that are unhappy with the economy that traditionally go Republican. I think both campaigns acknowledge that this could be a chance of rewriting the map, as Reagan did in ’80 and also in ’84.

I think the most important choice in this election will be John McCain’s vice-presidential nominee. No one is going to add momentum to Obama’s train. That train is going at 800 miles an hour. The X factor is McCain and whether he can get someone on the ticket who’s going to be kind of a zinger or shocker who’s going to steal the media attention away from Obama…like [Walter] Mondale did with [Geraldine] Ferraro.