OK, Let's Go People

We have had the perfect storm on the Denn campaign in the last few days, of a busy candidate and a lazy blogger. So let’s get started.

First let’s dispense with the mandatory travelogue portion of the candidate blog, where the political candidate breathlessly tells you about where he has been over the last several days as you ponder whether to clean out the vegetable bin in your refrigerator. I just can’t help myself. Last Saturday I started at 8 in the morning with the Interdenominational Ministers Action Council in Wilmington, asking them to help my office sign more kids up for the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program. The good news is that the ministers are eager to help; the bad news is that Reverend Greer, the hard-working chair of IMAC, had no coffee for his colleagues who he had hauled out of bed early on a Saturday morning, and they all stared mournfully at the Starbucks cup I had brought with me. I thought there was something in the bible about providing coffee for any weekend meeting before 10 a.m. At noon, with the boys in tow (and after a trip to the library), I spoke to a group of child care providers about my efforts to get the Delaware House of Representatives to pass legislation I have proposed to control the cost of health insurance for families and small businesses. (If you haven’t yet signed the new on-line petition to get these bills heard in the House, please sign it today by clicking here.) And then at 3:30 I embarked on the type of statewide jaunt that has earned my Ford Focus gold card status at the Winner Ford service department: to Gumboro to visit with the 41st District Democratic Committee’s annual Charlie West dinner, then on to Smyrna to visit with Smyrna area Democrats for their annual dinner, and finally on to the Greenville Country Club for the Delaware Autism Society’s annual dinner.

Sunday, after visiting the inaugural 5K run for Variety—the Delaware Children’s Charity (chaired by the IBEW’s own Doug Drummond), the boys and I had bagels at Dunkin Donuts and then played at home and settled in with Mrs. Denn to watch the Eagles pathetically self-destruct against the Chicago Bears. I am pretty sure I heard Adam tossing and turning after he went to bed saying “don’t give them the pass over the middle!”.

Now, on to this week. Among various other campaign events, we have two Halloween Parades scheduled this week. They each present special challenges. First is the Milford Halloween Parade (which I believe has been given a name other than “Halloween Parade” this year to satisfy some Halloween Objectors). My first and only time in this parade was in 2004 (it has been cancelled the last two years). In 2004, Lenny was still a puppy, the parade was much longer than I thought it was, and it was so big that it took us 90 minutes just to get to the starting line. So Lenny was dragging, and because a good 2 ½ hours had passed from the beginning of the parade to the time that we got to the reviewing stand, many of the children watching the parade had gone home and a small number of the remaining adults (all of them, I am sure, from Maryland) had been warming themselves with pints of Jack Daniels. The end result was a gauntlet of people screaming “pick up your dog!” This year, Lenny is bigger and stronger, the parade is supposedly smaller, and I am supposedly closer to the beginning than the end. But I am still working on a snappy comeback for “pick up your dog.” Suggestions are welcome (“Pick up your mother” has already been rejected).

The second parade is the Newark Halloween Parade this weekend. This is a great parade, most of the marchers are in costume and it isn’t too long. The distinguishing feature of the Newark parade is that everyone tosses hard candy at the kids watching the parade and the kids frantically run into the street to retrieve the candy. I am lobbying to have parade participants next year throw whole wheat toast. Look for us in the parade: Adam will be dressed as Winnie the Pooh, Zach will be Tigger, and I will be Christopher Robin of the Future (i.e. with less hair and long pants).