First, some brief campaign news. More endorsements rolled in since Wednesday: one from the 7th Representative District Democratic Committee in Brandywine Hundred, and one from the University of Delaware College Democrats. The 7th District endorsement means that 16 out of the 16 representative districts that have officially endorsed candidates have endorsed me. That is obviously pretty good. The College Democrats endorsement is also a big deal, because those College Dems are the die-hard workers of the Delaware political scene.
Additional campaign news: our lawn signs were successfully unloaded on Wednesday with no injuries. Teamsters vice president Michael Ciabattoni had planned to help his members unload the signs, but instead supervised the process from his home while reclining in his kimono and bunny slippers.
Finally, some non-campaign news. I was reminded again last night why I love doing the work that I do. I was speaking to a group of adoptive parents at Simpson United Methodist Church, and after the meeting was over as I was getting to leave, a woman came up to me and asked if she could introduce herself. She had been in another part of the church wrapping items for a fair the church is having this weekend, and she had heard I was in the auditorium. She has a young child who wears hearing aids, and she wanted to thank me for my help with a pending bill to require private insurance companies to do what the State of Delaware already does for its employees—help the parents of hearing-impaired children pay for part of the cost of a new set of hearing aids every three years. Policyholders who don’t have hearing-impaired kids won’t even notice the difference—the impact on health insurance premiums will be between six and twenty cents a month. But for people like the woman who came out to thank me at the church, it means the difference between buying the hearing aids her son really needs to succeed in school and having to buy a less expensive set. Almost every day I run into someone who has been affected by something my office does—a person we helped resolve a claim with an insurance company, someone who is now able to keep their young adult child on their health insurance, or someone like the lady at church last night. It makes all the sign-unloading worthwhile.
