On the day of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's visit to Colorado last week, U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Golden) chose Obama over 110,000 people.

"So, you're a member of Congress," Perlmutter said to a group of Obama campaign volunteers in Golden on Sunday. "You have a choice - either speak to 110,000 people at Civic Center, or you get to ride on a bus from Denver to Fort Collins with Mark Udall and his wife Maggie Fox, Ken Salazar, Barack Obama and two Secret Service agents."

"So all of you who would want to speak to 110,000 people, raise your hands," Perlmutter said.

No one in the room moved.

"All of you who would like to ride on that bus?" Perlmutter asked as everyone's hand shot up.

"Good - I am in touch with my constituents," Perlmutter said. "That's exactly what I did."

Once on the bus, though, Perlmutter said he was visibly more excited about riding with Obama than Salazar and Udall.

"Here you have these two guys who are sitting across from the next president of the United States...you'd think they'd be paying just rapt attention," Perlmutter said. "They're sitting on the bench, and they both have their right leg over their left. They're kind of turned to the left, each one of them on their cell phone."

Perlmutter snapped a picture of the two and jokingly said he wasn't afraid to blackmail the two.

"If I need something from two senators, I am going to get it," he said to laughter.

"How many of you have teenage daughters?" Udall, standing next to Perlmutter, responded to the crowd. "Ken was talking to his teenage daughter; I was talking to mine."