Yesterday, President Obama held a high-stakes town hall meeting in New Hampshire to discuss the current health care reform push. It could have been a disaster, considering all the violence and heckling and shoving that’s been erupting at similar town hall events held by Democratic Senators and Representatives during the August recess.
But it wasn’t a disaster. It went just fine. No violence. No heckling. No shoving. No trouble, in the end, from even this guy.
True, Obama has some advantages. He arrives at his town halls (two more are planned for this month, one in Montana and one in Colorado) with much more security and stage-managing than the average member of Congress. But the event in New Hampshire nevertheless reminded that a Democrat who’s in command of the facts, and is willing to lay them out in an unpredictable public appearance, can rise above all the current nonsense and get across a message about the importance of real health care reform.
So why aren’t more Democrats in Washington’s Congressional delegation willing to head “into the lion’s den”—as a headline on the HuffingtonPost yesterday described Obama’s trip to the New Hampshire town hall meeting—and take on a skeptical public?
After all, this isn’t Lebanon, Pennsylvania or Tampa, Florida. It should be pretty easy for our representatives to tangle with whatever anxiety about health care reform exists in Washington State. It shouldn’t be a terrifying thing for them to stand up and make the case that Congress needs to pass a real reform package this year.
But it seems many of our Democratic Representatives and Senators are running scared from the town hall format. As you can see from this image, Seattle Congressman Jim McDermott, a doctor and one of the most committed health care reform advocates in House of Representatives, is holding a meeting tonight with the 34th District Democrats that is, please note, “NOT A TOWN HALL MEETING.”
There are fears that right-wing teabaggers will disrupt the meeting anyway. But if they do, so what? Is McDermott not capable of rhetorically demolishing their insane, paranoid arguments about Obama wanting to create a “death panel” in order to kill grandmothers across the land? Can McDermott, who has tangled with some pretty tough characters during his many years in Congress, really not make the case for health care reform if the crowd is a little rough?
When I asked McDermott’s office last week about his plans for talking to constituents about health care reform during the August recess, I was told he’d be doing a telephone town hall (a new, safer approach that many members of Congress have come to love this summer), as well as a press conference and an event at a private home. No open-to-the-public town halls on his agenda.
Congressman Jay Inslee has also become a fan of the telephone town hall, though his office assured me he’d be doing one live, in-person town hall sometime this month—but wouldn’t reveal the date, time, or location. Congressman Brian Baird, saying he fears an ambush by teabaggers and other reform opponents, has flat-out sworn off public town halls; he will only phone it in this August. Senator Patty Murray‘s office says she will be doing small events across the state. (“The town hall is not a format that she often uses,” said her spokesman, Eli Zupnick. “She prefers doing smaller meetings with constituents.”) And the August public schedule for Senator Maria Cantwell, as sent to the press late last week, doesn’t even include the words “health care,” much less a town hall meeting on the subject.
It appears Congressman Rick Larsen is the only Democrat in this state willing to truly embrace the town hall format. He’s done several of them already, and will be doing another this afternoon in Everett. If you’re on the e-mail list for Organizing for America—the successor to Obama’s online campaign operation—you probably already know this because you’ve received the following plea:
Standing up for insurance reform in Everett with Rep. Larsen (Health Care Public Event)
Our representatives are under attack by Washington insiders, insurance companies, and well-financed special interests who don’t go a day without spreading lies and stirring up fear. We need to show that we’re sick and tired of it, and that we’re ready for real change, this year.
Please come to the Health Care event, and make sure that the most powerful voices in this debate are those calling for real reform.
This is all part of the Obama administration’s promise to be there for members of Congress who stick their necks out this August. “If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard,” they’ve told people like Larsen. Organized labor has made a similar vow to show up and defend Democrats against unruly mobs intent on disrupting health care town halls.
So, again, what exactly is scaring Jim and Jay and Brian and Patty and Maria?
Yeah, chaotic images from a town hall meeting can look bad. But those doing the disrupting usually end up looking the worst. And you know what looks great? A Democrat who stands up and, despite the tension of an unpredictable format, is able to explain the importance of health care reform and tell the teabaggers to grow up, as Obama did yesterday, saying: “Where we do disagree, let’s disagree over things that are real, not these wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that has actually been proposed.”
Maria Cantwell has simply disappeared on health care. No matter what the outcome, she’s shown herself to be craven and useless in the face of the pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies. Is there a Dem ready to take her on in the next election?
Not to downplay Obama’s great performance during his town hall…but I think part of the reason why his didn’t turn into an ugly shout fest was (from what I’ve read) the audience was picked At Random from a pool of prospective attendants. So the tea baggers didn’t really have a way to pack the audience with disruptors.
So…why not start doing at at all of them…?
“LionsDen”
Surely you jest-
in BabyBlue Washington State??
I’m fine with Reps & Sens not holding townhall meetings. There is a clear agenda afoot to disrupt these meetings, and the low wattage mules how are doing the disrupting should be assumed to be dangerous. Stupid people who get worked up over the boogeyman often turn violent. We’ve got a lot of history to back this up. (Salem Witch Trials, race lynchings, etc.)
Most Reps & Sens are cowards at heart, so asking them to put a target on their chest in a room full of wackos is a dead end.
we (democrats) need plants at these meeting. we need to go completely over the top, disguised as “protesters” of the health care reforms. make the right wingers seem even more insane. although sarah palin is hard to top, what with her claims that obama wants to kill her down’s kid (did you know that sarah palin has a child with down’s syndrome??).
For starters, THIS is Seattle. I was there, the crowd teetered on the brink of violence, and interested attendees had little chance to hear anything.
(Much more video to choose from … BTW, who’s that voice you hear over the crowd? Maybe this clip will yield a clue.)
For another, McD’s town meetings have been chaotic enough when only the lefties came out to shout him down.
@7 I totally agree – need we remind ourselves how many Ron Paul RevoLutionaries inhabit this state? We may not be “Lebanon, Pennsylvania or Tampa, Florida,” but we have more than our share of crazies that are particularly sensitive to big bad government and like shows of force that involve guns.
They may be cowards, true, but they probably also know that the crazy teabaggers aren’t convinced by truth or facts.
It doesn’t matter if you tell them tax-funded abortions aren’t in any of the health reform bills, they don’t believe it and will continue to yell and scream and shake uncontrollably about it.
It’s like a post Charles Mudede wrote a while ago about the “birthers” not being about facts, but about feelings. The town-hall-yellers don’t care about facts, they have a “feeling” that things are wrong and that’s why they’re yelling.
We already have enough trouble keeping the LaDouchies from disrupting the regular monthly LD meetings!
I have a friend working in Congresswoman Cathy McMorris-Rodgers’ office – you know, one of the reddest parts of the state. Apparently, the nutbags are even calling her office to find out when town meetings are. That’s right, they want to go yell at a REPUBLICAN.
Asking if any of the Democrats could rhetorically demolish paranoid rantings is a useless question. You can’t stifle paranoia with reason, because these people are demonstrably insane. They don’t care what you say, what facts you have or anything of the sort. They’re not looking for an argument, they’re looking for an opportunity to scream, shout and harass while feeling uber-patriotic about it.
I don’t blame Congresscritters for scurrying back to their hidey-holes. Why throw a big target on your back advertising for predators?
Maybe these reps and senators have figured out like the rest of the unterbussen that when Obama says he’ll be there for you later, he usually has his fingers crossed behind his back.
It’s not a question of out-debating a group of clowns — if you even appear in the same frame with these red-nosed, giant-shoe-wearing, pie-lobbing bozos it looks bad for you. It’s called a no-win situation. Experienced politicians have good reason to stay far away from this particular circus.
Congressman Jay Inslee is indeed hosting two in-person town hall meetings towards the end of the month, and I can assure you that the details are not being kept a secret. They will likely take place on the 29th in Kitsap and the 30th on this side of the water. As soon as we have those details confirmed we will start advertising the meetings.
Eli, I would appreciate it if you would respond to the email that I sent you earlier so that I can make sure you are up to speed on the details of these events as they get settled.
Sharmila K. Swenson – District Director, Congressman Jay Inslee