1. Get elected Lt. Governor. Duh
2. Go to the gym as much as my mother does. This is not as easy as it sounds.
3. Get the General Assembly to bring my health insurance reform bills up for a vote.
4. Get my son Adam to break the habit of addressing me as “The Count” and refusing to comply with my requests unless they are expressed in a Transylvanian accent.
5. Get my son Zach to stop thinking that it is funny to get in trouble, and exponentially funnier to get in trouble for thinking that it was funny to have gotten in trouble.
6. Convince Lenny that his snowman chew toy is not his girlfriend.
7. Stop watching reality t.v. shows.
8. Buy my wife flowers more often.
9. Make sure that even in the midst of the campaign, the Denn clan comes first. Of course, if I can accomplish that by dragging them around all over the state plastered with my stickers, that works too.

I am out of the office today and watching the boys, who are on “vacation” from the grueling rigors of finger painting and recess. I have no idea what to do with them until Michele gets home from work in the afternoon. They love going to the library, so I have come up with the novel idea of killing a few hours by going on a barnstorming tour of three different libraries. They can read, I can get some work done, and the constant change of scenery should forestall any organized rebellion until at least lunchtime. For national security reasons, I cannot disclose which libraries we are going to.

The next couple of weeks of the campaign are tough—with the holidays going on people are busy, and there really aren’t too many events where it is appropriate to campaign. But don’t despair: as long as my cell phone is working and there are rich people who don’t recognize my phone number on their caller ID, there is still productive work to be done for the campaign. Eventually I am going to be reduced to buying disposable cell phones at 7-11 in order to make sure my fundraising calls get through.

I am thinking of investing in some publicly traded coffee stocks, or seeking to become the U.S. Ambassador to Costa Rica. Because I think I am personally supporting the demand side of the world’s coffee economy these days. I just can’t stay awake as late as I did 20 years ago.

As I mentioned in my last post, I spent Thursday night down in Rehoboth with Pete Schwartzkopf and some business owners unhappy about the legislature’s inaction on health insurance reform. What I didn’t mention was that on the way home, I began feeling kind of goofy around 11:00 and got off the road in Middletown for a large coffee and to collect myself. I also inserted a special CD in the car which is the drowsiness equivalent of breaking the glass on the fire extinguisher in a public building: it features some of the most headache inducing numbers that Led Zeppelin, The Who, the Rolling Stones, and others have produced over the years.

Friday night, Mrs. Denn and I persuaded my sister to babysit the boys, and we went out for a rare date night. We went to the Little Fish Grill near South Street in Philadelphia—our favorite Philly restaurant—and then we went over to the TLA to see Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. We got there at 9:30, when we figured the opening act would be wrapping up. They were just coming on. By 10:30, when Sharon Jones finally came on, we were struggling. At about 11:20, in spite of an awesome show from Ms. Jones that was only half over, our desire to have our children not raised as orphans took precedence, and—aided and abetted by two Little Fish coffees–we headed home. I have attached a YouTube link below for Sharon Jones, so you can see what you missed out on if you weren’t at the TLA with us.

Finally, on Saturday night, Lenny and I headed down to Townsend for the 8th and 9th District Democratic Committees’ annual holiday party. This is always a great party—almost 100% turnout from the committee members, and just as importantly, the only holiday party to which Lenny is routinely invited. Stephanie Hansen and Chris Roberts have the party at their farm house, which means that Lenny can run around without his leash outside, and then come inside and mooch ham and roast beef off the buffet table from a number of pet-loving Democrats. Lenny and I hung around until near the end, and—stop me if this is getting familiar—I had to stop at the Rt. 13 Wawas for a 20 oz. coffee to keep me awake on the way home. I did not go the head-banging CD route—Lenny’s musical tastes run more along the Anita Baker line.

I am planning on kicking the caffeine habit in December, 2008. Until the election is over, I am counting on Roger Daltrey, Robert Plant, and the hard-working men and women of 24-hour coffee establishments up and down the state to get me home safely.

Last night in Lewes, I spoke to a group of about 20 women that Rehoboth Beach rabblerouser Fay Jacobs assembled, all of whom wanted to know how they could help me with my fight to control the cost of health insurance. I was joined by one of my favorite State Representatives, Pete Schwartzkopf of Rehoboth. The discussion was not only lively but timely, because our General Assembly is coming back into session in about three weeks, and the time will have come to once again turn up the heat on the House of Representatives to let the two health insurance reform bills I have proposed come up for a vote. These women are locked, loaded, and ready to go: they are going to form coalitions with friends and business associates in the districts of the representatives who are holding these bills up, and to use a technical term, give them the business.

After the meeting was over, Pete told me that he would show me a ‘shortcut’ back to Route 1, but I misunderstood where he told me to turn and ended up in a pitch-black field that appeared to be where Joe Pesci was made in Goodfellows. Fortunately Pete had seen me make the wrong turn, called me on my cell phone to talk me down, and waited by the side of the road to lead me to safety. I was immensely grateful to Pete until I realized that if I had just gone back to Route 1 the way I wanted to, I wouldn’t have been lost in the first place. So in honor of Patty Hearst, I have decided that the sense of gratitude that one feels after being led into a disastrous shortcut and then rescued from that same shortcut by the guy who gave it to you in the first place will be called “Pete Schwartzkopf Syndrome.”

We only tease because we love, Pete.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a code red situation in the Delaware Insurance Department. It isn’t homeowners insurance companies bailing out of the state; unlike many other coastal states, we have kept almost all of ours. Nor is it spiraling auto insurance rates; I have succeeded in holding average auto insurance rates almost flat since I took office. No, the problem is that the office holiday party is the day after tomorrow, and I have no jokes.

This is our third holiday party since I took office, and the first two—largely due to the efforts of my senior staff who double as joke writers—were big successes. Part of the formula for success is the Insurance Commissioner hosting the festivities while dressed in some ridiculous costume and making jokes that other, funnier, people have written for him. The first year I was kind of a bitter, angry Santa. Last year I was Karnak.

The crisis this year started with my refusal to dress as an elf, largely because I refused to wear tights. Nothing, up to and including waterboarding, will cause me to wear tights. On top of that, we have been kind of busy in the office doing, you know, insurance regulation, so there has been no joke writing time. The result: we are just over 48 hours from showtime, with no theme, no costume, no jokes.

If you care for the hard-working Delaware Insurance Department employees who have made our office a model for the nation, indeed if you love America, you will send me some jokes at mattdenn@hotmail.com for me to use this Friday. I am counting on you.

If you are thinking about getting sick in Delaware City, you might want to do it another day. Because this afternoon and evening, I will be riding along with the Delaware City Fire Company’s ambulance crew, to get a firsthand look at the great work that they do. I am not planning on getting in the way, but earlier this year at the Delaware Volunteer Firefighters Association lunch, it was revealed that one of our Democratic candidates for Governor tossed his cookies during one of his recent ambulance ridealongs, and the other one wandered out into traffic during a evening stop along the side of the road. So my goal for the day is to present a danger only to myself—and the good news is that if I do somehow hurt myself, it will be a quick trip to the emergency room.

And on the subject of hurting yourself, I have to convey to you that the Denn campaign has shattered yet another myth. This is the myth that real men do not eat quiche. Yesterday was my mom’s birthday, and we made brunch for her at our house, which featured the usual pancakes and bagels, but also Emeril’s Smoked Salmon Quiche with a Crispy Potato Crust. It is like eating an order of spicy hash browns, eggs, and smoked salmon all at the same time. I don’t think you could eat anything more manly that wasn’t roasted on a spit over a fire. You can get the recipe from the Food Channel web site here. It tasted amazing, but I think I probably took a collective five years off my family’s life by serving it.

After brunch, Lenny and I marched in the Elsmere Christmas Parade, and then came home to click on the t.v. and watch Eagles kicker David Akers miss a desperation field goal attempt and thereby guarantee that we will see at least a little bit of the Eagles rookies before the end of the season.

I do not make a lot of predictions in this blog, other than my routine and unerringly accurate one that our President will do something in the succeeding 72 hours to further secure his place as one of the worst in our country’s history. But today I am making an exception: Bill Carson will be the next State Representative from the 28th district.

On Monday, I celebrated the gale force winds and bone chilling temperatures by spending part of the afternoon knocking on doors with Bill in Smyrna. Actually, we were right in Bruce Ennis’s neighborhood–if I had wanted to, I could have bounced a rock right off his window, except that Grace was home and she would have come out and kicked my butt. Anyway, it wasn’t Bill’s neighborhood, but I don’t think we knocked on two doors all day where the people who answered the door–Democrats, Republicans, and Independents–didn’t know Bill and have great things to say about him. It really was amazing–I have knocked on doors with a lot of candidates, and I have never seen anything like it.

Tonight, I am attending a fundraiser that some friends in Philadelphia are throwing for me. If I see Billy King moping around with his pockets turned inside out, I will say “why don’t you ask Chris Webber for some money, smart guy?”