Inslee fired up about Democrats, energy

DENVER -- Jay Inslee hit the ground running with a full head of steam.

"Boy is this a good time to be a Washington Democrat," U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee said when he took the stage at the Washington state delegation breakfast this morning. "I have never been so optimistic, I have never been so engaged, I have never been so motivated."

He pointed to George Bush's mishandling of Katrina, and Sen. John McCain refusing to vote on a deadlocked energy bill earlier this session as the reason for his fervor.

"I was so angry at George W. Bush during Katrina," Inslee said, "that I got on a plane and flew to the Astrodome. It is going to be Democrats who someday restore New Orleans, who restore education, who get universal health care. I believe that is what we are going to do. I believe that is our destiny."

He also received loud applause for reminding folks that he voted against the war from the start.

 The Bainbridge Island Democrat went on to tell a number of colorful stories including that of notorious Colorado cannibal Alfred Packer, who killed and ate five members of his snowbound traveling party in the Rocky Mountains.

"When yah came to Hinsdale County, there was siven Dimmycrat," a newspaper famously reported the judge saying at Packer's trial in 1873. "But you, yah et five of 'em, goddam yah."

"Let me tell you there is going to be some Republicans getting eaten this year," Inslee said.

Inslee, who was a prominent early supporter of Hillary Clinton's campaign and a co-chair of her energy committee, spoke of the need for Democrats to stick together this fall to maximize the number of victorious elections.

"I will go anywhere in any county in any race in any city," he said of this fall's electoral environment. "It does not permit one iota of tension among Democrats."

Inslee closed by talking about his signature issue, the environment. He touted Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and King County Executive Ron Sims' work on the environment and implored Americans to "stop looking below our feet and start looking above our shoulders and between our ears" for energy solutions.

"That is why it is imperative to put Barack Obama in the White House and Darcy Burner in Congress. One fundamental difference between us and them," he said of the Republicans. "They are for big oil, and of big oil. We are for new clean energy to create a new economy for the USA."

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