Either the left is very worried about Republicans in the U.S. House hanging tough on a debt deal – or they’re running out of people to protest.

How else to explain the e-mail from MoveOn.org requesting members deliver a “message” outside U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette’s Denver office at noon Tuesday?

“Over the next few days, Democrats like Rep. DeGette will face growing pressure to let irresponsible threats win out and to cave into Republican demands to slash Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid,” reads part of the e-mail, which calls for “every patriotic American to show up outside Democratic congressional offices nationwide on Tuesday at noon…”

Now, we’d like nothing better than for DeGette to join House Republicans in slashing federal spending. But as we’ve pointed out previously, her voting record since 1997 has earned her a reliable ‘F’ (save for a ‘D’ in 2003) from the National Taxpayers Union.

Is DeGette, who defended the federal stimulus spending [see video above] when running for re-election last year, at sudden risk of earning an ‘A’?

President Obama won some fans last Tuesday when he proposed that Congress take a hard look at federal regulation, citing the number of federal agencies that had oversight of salmon. The following day Congresswoman Diana DeGette, D-Colo., used the first few minutes of her opening statement at the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing on regulatory reform to praise Obama’s proposal. The balance of her time, however, was used to blame deregulation and a lack of regulation for the near-collapse of our financial system, mercury resulting in birth-defects, carbon pollution from cars and trucks resulting in climate change, and children being exposed to tobacco and salmonella.

At 2:39 DeGette says:

We must recognize, however, that regulations per se are not the problem. The mantra that all regulations are inherently bad and kills jobs is wrong and dangerous.

U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., was on MSNBC this morning, discussing plans by the Colorado delegation to sit together tonight during Pres. Obama’s State of the Union address.

“Well, under the leadership of our senior Senator, Mark Udall, the Colorado delegation which is four Democrats and five Republicans [five Democrats and four Republicans] we’re, all of the House members and one of our Senators, we’re all going to sit together tonight. And frankly there’s been a lot more comity than people realize over the years. The Colorado delegation meets every month, we talk. We don’t agree always on politics, but we try to take a good tone and I think that’s an example frankly that the country can look at.”

Well I hope she’s right. But the State of the Union is largely about applause lines. Given the policy disagreements, the comfort that the Colorado delegation may feel going in may fade quickly. The House vote to repeal the Health Care bill, the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and partisan dissent over budget cuts and plans to tackle the debt are likely to cause some uncomfortable moments.

I’m proud we have a delegation that works together relatively well, but meeting with your caucus once a month to discuss issues is a far cry from having TV cameras and commentators trained on your reactions.

Now, if only Pres. Obama would come up with a coherent plan for deep spending cuts (and tax cuts) that Republicans COULD stand up and applaud.

Stung by the Republican-led repeal of ObamaCare in the House of Representatives and already targeting three freshman GOP legislators with TV ads, the left is trying everything it can to control the terms of public debate.

Who’s on board the misinformation campaign? I know . . . I know. I was shocked, too: it’s my own 1st District representative in Congress, U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo.

Here’s part of DeGette’s statement on the GOP repeal effort on the House floor this week…

“…If you want to give benefits like this to millions of Americans, to young people, to women with gender disparity, and to small businesses, you have to have comprehensive reform. We all know it, and that’s why we need to resist this effort. We need to resist repealing this legislation and we need to work together across the aisle to implement it in a way that helps every single American.”

I’ll give it to her, she’s plucking the heartstrings, pandering to women and small business owners, as well as those up to age 26 allowed (under ObamaCare) to stay on their parents’ health-insurance policies. (Speaking for myself, I have never been so unhappy to be 27, because if everyone younger than me is getting a health care bennie, I want it, too!).

The problem with “giving” benefits to millions of Americans is that SOMEONE has to pay for it. Under ObamaCare, individuals would be REQUIRED BY LAW to carry health insurance (pending the outcomes of several more lawsuits) or face penalties.

For an obliteration of the Democrats’ arguments that ObamaCare somehow pays for itself, PLEASE watch U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., in his remarks, “Health care law is a fiscal house of cards.”

Left-leaning politicians and their apologists in the media describe the repeal as “symbolic.” But why be upset about a symbol?

“No doubt the Majority Leader [Harry Reid] fears defections when [Senate] Republicans eventually do force an up-or-down vote, especially among the many vulnerable red-state Democrats standing for re-election in 2012,” The Wall Street Journal noted today.

Even if the Senate were somehow to vote for repeal, Pres. Obama would veto it. But, as Emily Miller at Human Events writes, the GOP strategy is multi-faceted: “Repeal, Replace, Defund.”

There’s been a fair bit of discussion about what the GOP repeal effort should be called. I would dub it “The Patient’s Freedom Restoration Act.”

Residents of the politically diverse 7th Congressional District in Colorado would be shocked to learn that U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., votes with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi more often than does U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, whose overwhelmingly Democratic district is primarily Denver.

Yet, that appears to be the case, based on an OpenCongress.org search tool [see below] that allows head-to-head comparisons of voting records.

Former U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez (whom I once worked for) brought Perlmutter’s voting record to my attention. Beauprez – a Republican who has endorsed Perlmutter’s opponent, Ryan Frazier – was narrowly elected to the newly-created House seat in 2002 and re-elected in 2004. Here’s what he told me this month:

“Ed, you know, he’s supporting the stimulus that didn’t work. Bailouts that obviously failed and [that] people just despise. ObamaCare that people did not want. Financial reform that made capital that much more difficult to get at – and jobs that much more difficult to acquire. Where’s the plus signs? There aren’t any. Ed Perlmutter has voted with [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi and [President] Barack Obama more than even Diana DeGette did. Almost 100% of the time. Now, does anybody in the 7th Congressional District really think that being 100% in step with Nancy Pelosi is in step with the 7th Congressional District?”

Here’s a comparison of Congressional voting records through OpenCongress:

“Ed Perlmutter and Nancy Pelosi have voted together 300 times on roll call votes since January, 2007 in votes where neither abstained, representing a voting similarity of 99%, according to this OpenCongress analysis.

“Diana DeGette and Nancy Pelosi have voted together 296 times on roll call votes since January, 2007 in votes where neither abstained, representing a voting similarity of 99%,” according to this OpenCongress analysis.

So, both Perlmutter and DeGette are each at 99 percent. But Perlmutter wins my tiebreaker with four more roll-call votes in common with Pelosi. Wow.

It’s a good thing no one’s exploiting the Gulf Oil Spill for political gain. So, for example, the Colorado Democratic Party WOULD NEVER cordially invite “you to an Insider Briefing on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill” with U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette for a suggested contribution of $250 as a guest, $500 as a co-host or $1,000 as a sponsor.

Oh wait, they did. Craig Holman of Public Citizen called the planned July 12 fundraiser in Denver “unusually tactless, given the gravity and public anger over the oil spill disaster,” reported Politico. [PDF of invite here.]

Here, free of charge, is DeGette (a member of the Natural Resources Committee) grandstanding on CNBC last month, one of 11 videos on the environmental disaster posted to her YouTube channel…

Here’s Gary Swing, the Green Party candidate for Colorado’s 1st District Congressional seat, held by Democrat Diana DeGette since 1997.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tppevz_HhOM]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tppevz_HhOM

“I don’t know if you just heard my new song,” she said at the party’s state assembly on Saturday. “‘You can stand me up at the gates of hell but I won’t back down.’”

In 2008, Congresswoman Diana DeGette said about the open U.S. Senate seat, “The pundits say, well Diana is from Denver and she’s too liberal to run statewide. John Hickenlooper, who’s the mayor of Denver, is the frontrunner. It’s like…hmmmm. And I love John. But frankly I would bet you – he doesn’t have a Congressional voting record – but if you look at some of the things he’s done, he’s probably at least as liberal as me.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHf7B3w7-MI]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHf7B3w7-MI

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh-spDQGwJs]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh-spDQGwJs