WDEL 1150 AM, September 2, 2008

Children are our greatest asset and a Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor wants to protect them.

Matt Denn says he wants every child to have health insurance regardless of the household income because of its importance to their welfare.

He also stressed how his plan would be a major benefit not just to the families who need it but to the entire state.

Denn says healthy kids are happier kids and his program, should he become Lt. Governor would help boost their way of life.

As recently featured on Slate.com’s weekly political wrapup podcast, livingroomcandidate.org features presidential campaign ads from the last 50 years, including one from 1960 with a catchy tune about John Kennedy (”A man who’s old enough to know but not too young to do”) and one from 1988, just after George H.W. Bush chose Dan Quayle as his running mate, reminding voters that one in five vice presidents in history have become president.

A lot of people on the campaign trail over the weekend have asked me how the current situation with AIG will affect Delawareans.  So I thought I would take a moment away from stories about the campaign to briefly touch on that issue.

First, the AIG insurance companies that are ‘domiciled’ in Delaware are carefully monitored and are not in financial trouble.  AIG’s parent company—which is not even an insurance company—is the entity that is being bailed out by the federal government.

Second, much of the real impact of AIG in Delaware—on life insurance policyholders with AIG and on people who are employed by AIG—is felt from AIG companies that are actually domiciled in other states.  The AIG insurance companies domiciled in Delaware have very few policyholders or employees in Delaware.  That is why I have spent so much time on the telephone with the other 49 state insurance commissioners over the past week and a half: there is a real national effort underway to ensure that the states work together to guarantee that the AIG insurance companies in each of the states remain sound.

I am going to Washington D.C this week to meet with the other 49 insurance commissioners regarding the AIG situation—which is not over yet.  There are a lot of people in Delaware whose lives are affected by the outcome, and I want to be sure that I am doing everything I can to ensure that they are protected.

If my descriptions of life on the campaign trail have seemed a little less glowing recently, it is because much of my past week has been spent begging for the money we will need to get through the next six weeks.   Most of the begging is done by phone: the sequence is roughly (1) friend answers phone, (2) Matt identifies himself, (3) friend sighs deeply and silently reminisces about when Matt used to call for something other than money, (4) friend says “I know why you are calling,” explains that other candidates have bled them so dry that they are hocking their family jewelry, and then (5) friend gives Matt something anyway because my friends are pretty good people.

We did, however, have a couple of very successful events this week.  One of them was put on by my former attorney colleagues at Young, Conaway—I had suggested “give him the money now or he’s going to lose and be back here wanting a job” as a theme, but they went in a different direction.   And the second was put on by my old law school friend Seth in New York, who gathered a few of his financial community buddies who frequently hit him up for contributions to ask that they do the same.  As I spoke, I believe that the attendees were watching the financial markets crash on their blackberries, so in a few days we will see if the Denn New York fundraising trip is one more small victim of the deregulation experiment on Wall Street. 

We have not had an update on the Denn boys on the web site recently, so since my campaign time has been temporarily interrupted by our trusty friends at AIG, I thought I would do that today.

Adam and Zach started pre-school again in the last few days.  Under the delicate social compact with my wife that allows me to write this blog, I am not permitted to say what school they attend (she is, of course, right about this).  New for school this year: Wiggles backpacks.  Unfortunately, I ordered them through the mail from Wiggles Headquarters in Australia, and whether it is because the picture was deceptive or my grasp of the metric system isn’t what it used to be, the backpacks are about half of their actual height.  (It actually raises the question of why kids old enough to fit the backpacks would still be watching The Wiggles, but I only have so much space on this blog.)

After just one day of school, the music teacher at Zach’s new school is already impressed with his enthusiastic use of the dozen different percussion instruments in the music room.  I call him the Michelangelo of the Downbeat.  Actually, I don’t call him that, but I might start.  And Adam came home from school last week and asked me to identify the primary colors for him.  I knew there would come a day when I would no longer be able to help them with their homework, but I thought they would be older than three when it happened.

Campaign item #1: my boys met Spiderman at Newark Community Day yesterday. Spiderman, who should have been paid big-time for running around in a superhero costume in 93 degree heat, high-fived the boys, gave them autographed comics, and they are still talking about it. This was just short of Sesame Street Live in terms of heart palpitatations.

Campaign item #2: we are running out of time to have campaign fundraisers, so we are squeezing in one at the home of my friends Bob and Kate Pincus. It is a week from Sunday, September 28th, from 5 to 7 p.m. (yes, we have scheduled it so that people can fill their bellies and get home in time for the Sunday night Eagles game). It is $200 to attend, which I know is a lot of money but we are in crunch time now, folks. You can RSVP by clicking here. And, of course, if you would like to contribute any other amount, you can do it at the same link.

Last night was the Hadassah debate at the Jewish Community Center, which has always been the official kick-off of the general election campaign.  It was the first time I have participated in a debate alongside Jack Markell as our candidate for Governor.  Other than Jack giving his parents a shout-out, which of course required me alter my remarks to give my mom a shout-out if I didn’t want to be written out of her will, it went great—dozens of people took lawn signs home with them, and we even recruited a few new volunteers.

It also appears that the great volunteers from my campaign have been training for the last two days at the Markell Academy for Overcaffeinated Young People—when I turned off Concord Pike to get to the debate, there was a cabal of Markell and Denn volunteers standing on the street corner yelling our names and waving signs in the air.  All kidding aside, one of the reasons that we are going to win this campaign is the incredibly committed volunteers who are helping us—so thanks to everyone who has donated their valuable time to our cause.  You won’t be disappointed.

As anyone who lives in Delaware knows, our primary elections occurred yesterday, and I finally know whose running mate I am: the next Governor of Delaware, Jack Markell.  Congratulations to Jack, Carla, and the whole Markell team.

Let me say something about Jack’s primary opponent, John Carney.  John is an extraordinary person, and I am confident that he is going to stay involved in public life in Delaware for a long, long time.  I stopped by to listen to John talk to his supporters after the results came in last night, and he was absolutely eloquent, especially in talking about what it had meant to him to have the privilege of serving as Lieutenant Governor.

I will be proud to run on the ticket with Jack.  He has a great plan for change for our state—as opposed to our opponents, who had no plans the last time I checked other than a health insurance “buyer beware” plan that should make you very, very afraid.  He is obviously a great campaigner.  And I think we will complement each other very well, both as candidates and as a team to help make our state everything it can be.

On to November!

I only saw about fifteen minutes of the Eagles game on t.v. yesterday because, you know, I’m running for Lt. Governor.  And I’m sure I’ve said this after at least a few Eagles home openers in the past.  But it looks like this could be a great season, and I am putting everyone on notice that after election day, the Denn household will not be answering the phone for at least three hours on most Sunday afternoons.  Being a political candidate, I must also take credit for predicting—in this very blog–that rookie wide receiver (and University of California alum) DeSean Jackson would be an awesome pick-up for the Eagles.  I got in the car and turned on the radio after his 60 yard punt return, and I thought they were going to have to defibrillate Eagles announcer Merrill Reese.

On a more serious note, we have a Democratic primary election coming up on Tuesday.  Primaries are really hard, and I speak as someone who had one back in 2004.  We will all be glad when this one is over.  But I want to note that whatever the outcome, one prediction that was almost universally made about our primary for Governor has not come true.  In mid-2007, all of the experts in Delaware predicted that our primary for Governor would be expensive, difficult, and ultimately nasty, resulting in a primary winner who would emerge on September 10^th as damaged goods, ready for a Republican assault.  Well don’t get me wrong, there have been some sharp elbows thrown here and there, but by national standards, by the more genteel Delaware standards, and as measured against the experts’ predictions, our primary for Governor has been remarkably positive, remarkably focused on the issues, and will result in a party nominee on Wednesday morning who will be our party’s most qualified candidate for Governor in a generation.  It has made us proud to be Delaware Democrats.

38-3. Need I say more?

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