The boys and I had a busy Saturday. We stopped by to say hi to Senator Dave Sokola and other Democratic Party volunteers who were sprucing up the gardens around the Judge Morris Estate in White Clay Creek State Park, went to the library to pick up our weekly book and DVD stash, and then the boys went home to nap while I visited with the rejuvenated 27th Representative District Democratic Committee at a picnic near Lums Pond. All of which was a lead-up to….

The Denn Boys’ First Blue Rocks Baseball Game. It was a huge hit. Our seats were next to the tunnel where Rocky Bluewinkle, Celery Man, and the other mascots emerge. Zach is now obsessed with Rocky—for most of the game, rather than watching the action on the field, Zach pressed his face up against the fence alongside Rocky’s tunnel and yelled “Rocky! Rocky!” down the tunnel. Some of Rocky’s handlers were kind enough to bring Rocky up the ramp a few minutes early so Adam and Zach could meet him in person before he sprinted out onto the field. That didn’t go quite as well—the boys love Rocky, but they also love for him to stay about five feet away. Anyway, my mom bought Adam and Zach stuffed Rocky dolls on the way out, and the Rocky dolls now sit at the breakfast table with Adam and Zach and have their own place settings.

This week, the Governor is planning on signing two bills that my office helped pass in the General Assembly this year. One is Senate Bill 31, our landmark legislation restricting the use of credit in setting Delawareans’ auto and homeowners insurance rates. The second is Senate Bill 78, requiring insurance carriers to provide medically prescribed nutritional supplements for persons suffering from a metabolic disorder known as PKU. I hope to bring you some pictures from the bill signing ceremonies.

On Monday, I went back to the State Fair, this time on a solo mission. And I did the two things that I always do when I go to the State Fair: I bought a corn dog, and I went to serve drinks at The Grange.

Why do I buy corn dogs? If you must ask this question, you either don’t eat meat, have never eaten a corn dog, or should be under strong suspicion of hating America. Corn dogs are about the best food that American ingenuity has developed in the last century, and because I can only get them at the State Fair, I try to stock up. (Any of you with web access who are tempted to fire up Google to try to discover that corn dogs were in fact invented in some other country, please don’t bother—I won’t believe you.)

Why do I work at The Grange? Because I really like the good people making dinners there who permit me to help, and because it gives me a chance to say hi to fairgoers without getting in their faces too much. If you decide to buy your dinner at The Grange (which I encourage you to do, because the food is really good even though they don’t make corn dogs), I have only a couple of requests:
1. Please ask for a soda instead of iced tea. Much less work for me.
2. Please don’t ask for more ice in your iced tea. You have as much ice as you need, and if I run out some poor guy has to carry a zillion pound bag of ice out from the freezer.
3. Please don’t complain about having to pay 50 cents for a cup of ice to go with your soda. You are visiting an event that charges you a dollar to see the World’s Smallest Horse. Rational pricing is really not a realistic request at the State Fair.

Yesterday morning, I went to New York to visit some campaign donors. (Don’t worry, I put in my time at work, too.) My father, who lives in New York, had told me on my last visit that “only suckers take taxis in New York, everyone else takes the subway.” Well I took the subway, and I would add to suckers “people who don’t know their way around the subway system and almost end up in Brooklyn,” and “people who have issues with being sneezed on.” My subway experience made the gridlock on Kirkwood Highway when I got home seem a little more bearable.

Last Saturday, the Denn Boys (Adam and Zach, age 2, for those of you new to this web site) hit all three counties of the state. They were so asleep when they got home that they didn’t even wake up while we were changing them into their pajamas.

Stop #1: the Delaware Day parade in Delaware City. I pulled Zach and Adam in a wagon, while Mrs. Denn drove the mini-van in front of us (hey, she said she wanted us to spend a family day together). The parade went pretty smoothly, except that Zach has developed a habit of simply chucking his empty sippy cups over his shoulder when he has finished them. This is rude and inconvenient at the dinner table, somewhat treacherous when he is hurling them out of a wagon during a moving parade and I have to run in front of an impending baton twirling team to retrieve them.

Stop #2: the 38th Democratic District picnic in Ocean City. Yes, you read that correctly: a picnic in Ocean City in the middle of the day on Saturday, when all the beach houses flip over. Let’s just say it took us a while to get there, including one diaper change stop and one stop at Best Buy because I promised the boys we could watch a show in the car and then we forgot to bring any. We pulled up just as all the politicians’ speeches were ending, the boys stuffed their faces and then played on the playground until it was time to depart for….

Stop #3: the Delaware State Fair. Clearly the highlight of the day for the boys. We visited all the animals. Zach came face to face for the first time with a cow, his favorite animal (other than his dog). Adam was entranced by the baby chickens, which kids are allowed to hold. This led to the following exchange:
ME: Adam, do you want to hold a baby chicken?
ADAM: Yes.
ME: You remember that you have to be gentle with the chicken, right?
ADAM: Yes.
ME: You just put your hand out and I will put it on your hand, but you don’t squeeze it, right?
ADAM: Right.
[I take chicken and place it in Adam’s outstretched left hand. Adam yells “chicken!” and gleefully grabs it so hard with his right hand that the poor chicken’s eyes bulge]
ME: Adam, let go of the chicken!
ADAM: [Cries]

The crying was soon stemmed by the appearance of the Delaware State Parade. The boys dined on a nutritious dinner of French fries and funnel cake while they watched the parade, Adam fell asleep in the stroller before we even left the fair, and Zach was right behind him. (By the way, the baby chicken is just fine.)

Just another relaxing family outing for the Denns.

After putting in a full day at the office on Wednesday, I said to myself “nothing would cap this off like a mad dash back and forth across Sussex County to try to visit as many of my Democratic Party friends as I can.”

Stop number one was at the Eastern Sussex Democratic Club’s annual picnic in Rehoboth. Virginia Harmon and her group have sponsored this event for the last few years, and it is a great tradition. While I was driving out of Rehoboth, I called Michele at the house to check in on the boys. Important lesson learned: if you hear children screaming and the sound of plates clattering to the ground over the phone, “how’s it going honey” is not a good conversation starter.

Stop number two was an hour northwest at a restaurant in Greenwood, where District Chair Pat Ewing and the 35th district Democratic Committee were holding a meeting. All the stars come out for the 35th district: by the time I arrived, Jack Markell and John Carney were already there. There is a reason everyone comes to the 35th: looking around the room, some of the most storied behind-the-scenes names in Sussex County politics were at the table. George and Gladys Adams, Dudley and Pat Ewing, Joe and Joanne Conaway…these are quality people who have been the lifeblood of the Sussex County Democratic Party for years. Pat Ewing and I go back an especially long way. She was one of my very first supporters when I ran for Insurance Commissioner in 2004, and when I needed someone to introduce me at my swearing-in ceremony in January of 2005, I asked Pat to drive up to Wilmington to do it.

The final stop of the night was back in Ellendale, at the 36th Democratic Committee Meeting. And again, a lot of history: the 36th District was one of the first representative districts to endorse me in 2004. As I like to say, they were for Denn before it was popular to be for Denn. Chairman George Strick gave me one of the nicest introductions I have ever received—I can’t remember everything he said, but one thing that stuck in my mind was “this guy does not quit, if you knock him down he just keeps coming at you.” I guess out of context it makes me sound like a rabid bull in Pamplona, but the way he said it, it was about the biggest compliment I could earn.

Michele and I are taking the boys to the Delaware State Fair on Saturday. Livestock beware.

The News Journal had good things to say today about the children’s health insurance signup project we announced Monday (see previous post). But don’t take my word for it — you can read it for yourself here.

One reason that I think this program will be a success is that we are working closely with the community to pull it off. For example, we will be working with organized labor. When I spoke to the executive committee of the AFL-CIO several weeks ago about our effort, I was thrilled with the response. These union leaders, whose members all have health insurance, could not wait to help other families have the same peace of mind as their members. And we will be working with the clergy. I started my career working in the basements and meeting rooms of Delaware churches, offering free legal advice to people who couldn’t afford to pay for it, so I am well aware of the function that churches can serve as a place where families can center their lives and get the help they need.

Tonight, I am attending three political events in Sussex County—the Eastern Sussex Democratic Party picnic, the 35th District Democratic Committee monthly meeting, and the 36th District Democratic Committee monthly meeting. It should all add up to about 200 miles on the Ford Focus, which is overdue for an oil change, so if you see a tan Focus wagon with smoke billowing from it on the side of the road, there is a good chance it is me. Please stop and give me a lift.

On Monday, Matt announced his latest initiative in the Insurance Commissioner’s Office: increasing the number of low-income children who receive low-cost health coverage through the Delaware Healthy Children Program. Delaware receives federal government money to pay for kids in this program, but millions of dollars go unused because not enough children are enrolled in the program. Meanwhile, the percentage of uninsured children in Delaware has been going up. That’s where Matt and the new, innovative effort come in.

Read the complete coverage from either the News Journal or the Delaware State News.