Dems get up early to take on the issues of the day

Coffee and a series of pep talks, including one from Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Wheat Ridge, should have woken up any sleepy Colorado delegates during a 7 a.m. breakfast Monday morning.

During a brief speech at the Grand Hyatt in Denver, Perlmutter said the George W. Bush administration has “reversed history to back before the Magna Carta.”

Several of the 70-plus delegates and alternates in the hotel’s Imperial Ballroom responded to the harsh claim with “ohs.”

“If we are bashful and shy, we are going to have the same kind of administration of the past eight years,” he told the delegates, stressing that Colorado is essential to the party’s success in November.

Sen. Ken Salazar, decked out in his cowboy hat and bolo tie, highlighted several key races in the state.

He noted that Hal Bidlack, the Dem candidate in the 5th Congressional District, and Betsy Markey, the Dem in the 4th Congressional District seat, will need all the party support they can get in their heavily Republican districts.

Salazar also used the opportunity to highlight how presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama and newly named vice presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden “have walked in the shoes of the people of America.”

He spoke of Obama’s “troubled childhood” growing up with a single mother, and how he “somehow kept pulling himself up — just the way you do in America.”

Biden, Salazar noted, is “not a rich man,” adding that the Delaware senator had a hard time putting his children through college and that “he knows what that struggle is all about.”

But it took former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, to get the Colorado delegation up on its feet — with the suggestion that they push their representatives to vote to hold Karl Rove in contempt of Congress.

“If Congress doesn’t vote to hold Rove in contempt, he will walk into the sunset, and it will be a great disservice to the country,” Sieglman said.

The delegates responded to his comments on the former Bush adviser with a standing ovation.

Siegelman, who was convicted of bribery and mail fraud in 2007, believes that Rove played a role in his prosecution. The former governor received a sentence of more than seven years. An appeal court raised questions on the case, and he is out pending an appeal. He served nine months in prison.

The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Rove when looking into whether he influenced the Justice Department to prosecute Siegelman, and Rove refused to testify.

Siegelman told the delegates that Rove targeted him and had an influence on the case because of his ties to the U.S. attorney who prosecuted him.

As soon as breakfast was over, delegates went to work, hoping to settle some of their issues before the gavel went down on the DNC’s first business day.

Delegate James Tucker, of Colorado Springs, headed off to meet with several people behind the Juneteenth movement, an effort to get more states to recognize June 19, which commemorates the ending of slavery in the United States, as a holiday. He noted that 29 states recognize the observance, including Colorado.

Jonathan Singer, of Longmont, joked that he “got in trouble” for handing out fliers promoting the Progressive Democrats of America panels being held this week.

No fliers were supposed to be distributed during the delegate breakfast, he said.

Singer said he got involved with the grassroots group after serving as a Dennis Kucinich delegate in 2004, and said he plans some of the group’s issue-based events when he gets a chance.

Progressive Democrats of America will hold forums on health care, election reform, media and economic justice — and more — at Denver’s Central Presbyterian Church, 1660 Sherman St.

Monday’s delegate breakfast was sponsored by Forest City Stapleton, Qwest and First Data Corp.