Hulu.com has full-length movies and full episodes of dozens of TV shows, all online. The TV offerings are quite a smorgasbord, from current hits (24, Scrubs, Law & Order, Battlestar Galactica) to classics (Miami Vice, The A-Team, Doogie Howser and, well, Battlestar Galactica). Particularly intriguing are the spin-offs (Archie Bunker’s Place, What’s Happening Now!, Team Knight Rider and — wait for it — Galactica 1980).

First, the good news: I was endorsed this week by the 19th district Democratic Committee. There are now three RD committees that have endorsed candidates in my race, and each of them has endorsed me. Thank you, 19th district—and my honorary co-chairs in that district, House Minority Leader Bob Gilligan and State Senator Karen Peterson.

Now, the bad news: I am attending three dinners tonight, and I am relatively sure that I am not going to get food at any of them. First I am stopping by the reception prior to the Delaware State Education Association’s annual dinner down in Dover. I have worked with DSEA for the past few years to ensure that state employee health benefits are protected, and I am hoping to work with its members even more once I am elected to make Delaware a magnet for the best new teachers in our region of the country. Then I am racing north to Newark to stop in at the 23rd District Democratic Committee’s annual spaghetti dinner. Finally, off to Wilmington to have dinner with a group of foster parents who want to talk about my plans if elected to improve the support our state provides to them—except that by the time that I get there, I am pretty sure dinner will be over.

The silver lining is that we are having cake this afternoon at the Insurance Department to mourn my friend Mike’s Vild’s last day as Deputy Insurance Commissioner, and I think the likelihood of my missing dinner is justification for me having two pieces of cake.

Today I will be joining early childhood educators for their annual rally at Legislative Hall. Their priorities are the same as they have been for the past several years: making sure that children, and particularly children below 200% of poverty who are enrolled in early childhood centers that receive state subsidies, get adequate funding from the state to ensure that they get a good early childhood education.

For all the posturing by politicians about how much they care about children, and how important early childhood education is, we have a long way to go as a state in having our commitment live up to our rhetoric. The average pay of a lead teacher in one of our early childhood education settings is $8.90/hour. The subsidies that we provide for children living below 200% of the poverty level do not match those of surrounding states. And in 2003, the state undertook a comprehensive evaluation of the state’s early childhood programs, and the results were unsettling to anyone who—like me—has his or her children in an early childhood program for part of the day. Seventy percent of the programs surveyed by the state were rated poor or mediocre.

I went to the Public Integrity Commission web site today, and counted on my fingers and toes the number of registered lobbyists in Dover. There are 275 of them. That is a staggering number. Of those 275, I could count on one hand the number who are there solely on behalf of children’s interests. Making the voices of children heard above the din caused by 275 lobbyists is one of the primary reasons I am running for Lieutenant Governor, and it is why I will be proud to join those advocating for Delaware’s early childhood educators for their rally today.

The old school, folding humor of Mad Magazine, gone high-tech and interactive. Another reason to love the internet. Check it out here.

If you were at the Democratic State Convention on Saturday and I didn’t come up to say hi, don’t blame me. The candidates for statewide office were admonished by the state party not to stand outside the hotel doors, have any campaign volunteers approach any conventioneers with stickers or fliers, hang things on the walls, or slow dance. OK, the last one is made up, but I am relatively sure that if I had tried it, it would also have been prohibited.

Other than being tagged as a leper, the state convention was fun. I only stayed long enough to say hi to people as they were arriving (without actually approaching them) (and without attempting to affix anything to them) (and only inside the building). I wasn’t a delegate, so there was nothing much for me to do after the convention itself got started, and I headed back home to play with the boys for a couple of hours before heading out for the rest of the day’s events.

By the way, the young people who work for our state party are doing a great job. A lot of people were skeptical of Governor Dean’s plan when he took over as chairman of the Democratic National Committee to beef up the staffing and capabilities of the 50 state parties. Well, I don’t know how it is working in other states, but here in Delaware those funds—and the extraordinary staff people that they help pay for—are a huge part of the reason that the Democrats have continued to flourish in Delaware elections over the past several years. I would give them all a pat on the back, but I am not sure if that is allowed.

Good morning, Delaware. Tomorrow is the Delaware Democratic Convention. Unless you have a dying urge to go to Denver, Colorado for the Democratic National Convention, or know someone who does, not a whole lot will be going on there. But I will be there hawking my wares like a pushcart salesman.

There are also two important events happening later in the day on Saturday. First is the Sussex County Democratic Party’s spring dinner, organized by Denn campaign honorary co-chair Pat Ewing of Bridgeville. Pat is one of the few people for whom I would give up Saturday night with my family—she is the heart and soul of the Sussex County Democratic Party, and even though a run of bad luck has put her on crutches for the past couple of years, that has only seemed to inspire her.

Having buttered Pat up, I will now break it to her that I will have to leave the dinner early to attend an event for House of Representatives candidate Rebecca Walker up in Middletown. Becky is a great, great candidate, running against House Majority Leader Richard Cathcart who has spearheaded the Republican effort to bottle up health insurance reform in the House. She is an attorney by day, an emergency room nurse by night, and will make a great legislator. We just need a few challengers to win in order to take back the House, folks, and Becky could well be one of them.

Have a great weekend!

I don’t normally write posts on Tuesdays and Thursdays, because those are days that I have to bring the boys to pre-school and it is all I can do to get everyone out the front door wearing the correct clothes and without banana smeared on their faces. If you want to see evidentiary proof of this, take a close look at the boys’ picture from the Easter Seals volleyball fundraiser in our photo gallery: the reason that Adam appears to be wearing a Christina Aguilera style midriff-bearing shirt is that I accidentally put him in Zach’s clothes and vice versa.

But I am writing today to bring you some exciting news: today I will be formally endorsed by the Progressive Democrats of Delaware for Lieutenant Governor. This is a big one. The Progressive Democrats is a group of extraordinarily active Democrats who, once they decide they support a candidate, roll up their sleeves and hit the streets and phones for that candidate. As their web site says, “We value action not talk.” This endorsement was not a cakewalk—the Progressive Democrats had me fill out an extremely detailed survey, and they grilled me in person about some of the few issues where we didn’t see eye to eye. So it was an endorsement hard-earned, much appreciated, and now I am looking forward to the PDD members helping to provide the elbow grease for the Denn campaign.

Speaking of rolling up sleeves, Zach is going through a phase where he pulls his hands up into his sleeves (I guess to keep them warm), and right now he is eating pineapple chucks with his sleeves. Gotta go.

I get lots of mail and e-mails. Some of it comes in the middle of the night and seems to have been drafted after last call at the Deer Park. But most of it comes from good people who are concerned about their state and their families, and either need help or want to offer suggestions.

One of those helpful e-mails I got a year or so ago was from a father who had heard about a program offered in other states to teach teenagers how to avoid dangerous auto collisions. Not just your normal driver’s education class, but an advanced class that taught new drivers how to control their cars, so we would have fewer tragic headlines about young people injured or killed in vehicle incidents. And along the way, it also led to less expensive auto insurance for young people as their incident rates went down.

I said “sounds like a great idea, let’s find out what they are doing and do it here.” And today, after months of work, we will be joined by a number of police chiefs from around the state to unveil Delaware’s Collision Avoidance Training program. It is a program developed by the non-profit National Traffic Safety Academy, and it combines an evening of classroom instruction with a day of on-the-road driving exercises where teenagers learn what it feels like when a car is going out of control and how to regain control of it.

Thanks to the police chiefs, thanks to the Insurance Department staff for working to put this together, and above all, thanks to the Delawareans who wrote to me to bring this program to my attention.