Pete du Pont and the Dark Side

Yesterday, former governor Pete du Pont unveiled a (well-manicured) grassroots organization, "Delaware Lawyers for Judicial Fairness" to pressure Senators Biden and Carper to give in to the threat of the nuclear option and pass even the most radical nominees to the federal bench.
Last night on the political perspectives segment of the Channel 12 news, John Taylor, editorial page editor of the News Journal offered this startling comment on du Pont:

Pete went over to the dark side long ago.

Did he mean that Pete now strolls around in black armor sounding like James Earl Jones through a bad phone connection?
What he meant was that Pete du Pont, who governed in Delaware's centrist tradition, veered sharply to the right when he ran for president in 1988. For instance, Pete referred to Social Security as "Socialism's Last Redoubt" in his monthly WSJ online column. In 2000 he published a column "Gore Carries the Porn Belt" in which he correlates Democratic votes with the viewing of porn videos.