Nobody was overly surprised at Congresswoman Dianna DeGette's announcement today that she was endorsing Hillary Clinton's campaign for President, not even Rocky Mountain News reporter Lynn Bartels who had been told just recently by the Representative that there would be no endorsements made by the convention host city's Representative.
What was interesting, was DeGette putting her significant credibility on health care issues on the table, with a clear endorsement of Clinton's American Health Choices Plan.
Concurrent with the endorsement was the announcement of DeGette's appointment as national Co-Chair of the campaign's "Health Care Policy Task Force." DeGette went beyond saying that she would look forward to helping Clinton shape health care policy, to saying that the current Clinton plan was the right step forward.
DeGette said that the Clinton plan did not just, "throw out the current system," but that it allowed us to, "work with the current system and see how to insure all Americans."
Comparing it to the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, she said that it allowed us to, "get serious," about universal coverage.
Rep. DeGette had words of praise for all of the candidates, saying she liked them all and had respect for all of their abilities, but throughout her comments she repeated several times that Clinton alone had, "the depth of experience," needed to face the issues of Iraq, health care, and product safety.
The challenge, "But she voted to support the war!" was met with the retort, "And she will bring them home as soon as possible."
In a follow up, she was asked if the mechanism for bringing them home would include a cessation of war funding, DeGette responded that the way to bring them home would be for the troops to, "begin to be redeployed on a tiered basis, not by cutting off the funds."
DeGette knows all of the candidates in the race personally, but she said that Clinton was the only one thus far to approach her for counsel on the Representative's stem cell legislation. DeGette said that she intended to help post-election by moving health care legislation through Congress.
Asked if she would consider stepping out of her Congressional role and into one within the Executive if that provided an opportunity to further those policies, she laughed and declined to, "get ahead of herself," by commenting on the possibility.
She was questioned about Clinton's polling numbers that show her behind by four points in Iowa. DeGette said that it represented an improvement, and that Iowa voters just needed to, "get to know her better."
Saying that their experience of Clinton as the First Lady had created, "misconceptions," Degette said that Iowa voters would swing closer to Clinton as the vote approached.
The importance of the West in politics was raised, and DeGette explained that the Las Vegas debates had been an opportunity to address Western issues, but unfortunately those issues were eclipsed by Iowa and New Hampshire. In her role with the campaign, however, DeGette promised that public lands and water issues would be discussed on the campaign trail.
A couple of side notes:
Clinton was tethered to Iowa, and unable to come to the announcement, but Clinton's Colorado State Director, Tyler Chafee, was in attendance.
Tyler headed up the recent bond issue campaign in Denver, and as a well known staffer at RBI Strategy and Research, I was curious if his boss Rick Ridder was taking a position in the race. Tyler tells me his work for Clinton is an independent project and that he is officially on leave from the firm.
The conference was in the rotunda of the Capitol building and while there, I had the opportunity to have a brief word with Senator Ken Gordon. I asked the former candidate for Secretary of State if he would be interested in an appointment to that post should Mike Coffman step down to pursue the Congressional seat in CO-06.
Sen. Gordon said that he had spoken with Coffman, and that Coffman had no intention of creating a vacancy, but if Coffman were to open it by moving on to another job then Gordon was still interested in serving the State in that role.