I went to the town hall today in Lincoln, Nebraska held by Democratic Senator Ben Nelson.
Like many good folks here at Kos and all over America I feel we really need reform NOW in our health care system, so I took the time off from work to see for myself what my Senator would say in response to citizens questions about this topic.
I got there early when there was hardly a line at all...
- Held at Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital, in their gym.
About fourty people in line at 1 pm when I arrived.
(The event started at 3pm).
The local Democratic party faithful were there to hand out water and signs supporting reform, Reps from the SEIU were also there cruising the crowd and chatting nicely with everyone, taking down contact info for anyone that wanted to support them.
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The local media was there, and the actually town hall was broadcast live locally on an AM radio station 1240.
When I first arrived and shortly after there was only a smattering of health care opponents and no one carrying crazy signs, I was lucky enough to be standing between a couple of local Dem activists I already knew and two very nice lady's in their mid fifties both of which were also Liberals.
We did chat and have a conversation with one other lady nearby who had a fist full of printed right wing talking points and other propoganda from Faux News, she seemed to realize that she was out numbered about 4 to 1 and kept her opinions pretty quiet about health care.
The closer we got to 3 pm, the more wing nuts showed up, carrying small signs about stopping abortion and hands off my health care, all the signs were very small, all hand made, I so no real organized presence of opponents at all today.
The line had grown to close to a thousand people by time we were let in to enter the hall.
About 300 people were seated in the hall with Senator Nelson, about 400 more were in the overflow room (with sound piped in, so they could hear) and another 500 or so outside, also with sound piped out there for them to hear.
After a short introduction by the administrator of Madonna where she asked everyone to be civil and respectful they started calling on people with their hands raised to ask questions, calling on them in random turns.
Senator Nelson was very cordial and respectful to everyone that asked questions even when some of the people openly mocked him for being a Democrat, one wingnut even asked where it was allowed in the constitution
for government to run healthcare.
The best part of this townhall was that the really rabid wingnuts that were carrying signs showed up late and ended up outside unable to make it inside, yet the ones that did get inside were disrespectful, booed others often, and generally shouted Fox news talking points at anyone supporting health care reform or single payer.
SIGH: I guess even here in Nebraska there are people that think it is their job to shout everyone else down.
By the behaviour reported at other town halls, this one was pretty tame,
mainly I think because there were large amounts of police, Many staff members and even a few Secret Service agents inside in full view in the town hall.
I am very sure things got noisy - at least verbally, outside where the worst of the wing nuts were, then again I was inside so I cannot say what happpened out there.
Senator Nelson did a very good job of trying to be concilatory towards everyones point of view, and he spent much time in his replies deflating right wing myth's including those about "Death Squads" twice.
The two hard points Sen Nelson made during this session were:
- He would NOT vote for any health care bill that contains a provision
to pay for abortions period.
- He would NOT vote for any health care bill that was not a bipartisan effort.
Over all my impression about Ben was not changed by this meeting, he was decent and responsive but there were no surprises here. Ben will not
vote for anything that is not some watered down middle of the road bill
that still lets the health care companies make obscene profits.
Inside the meeting - we had the wingnuts outnumbered 2 to 1.
By just random chance they seemed to get more questions than health care reform supporters did.
There is more about this here -
http://www.omaha.com/...
After the meeting things were pretty relaxed as everyone filed out, I saw no one even holding up a sign outside, let alone causing any disruption, or carrying a gun....
All in all today was a good chance to connect with other Democrats and Progressives and talk aobut health care, and see some wingnut myth's get holes poked in them.
But Ben Nelson did not surprise me at all and I am still pretty sure Ben will be more of a hindrance than a help for American's looking for real health care reform.
Still things could be worse.... I could have attended a Town hall with any one of the three GOP Congressmen or our other Senator from NE and listened to them rally the faithful crazies with tales of HELL no - let everything fail. "We don't need change OR reform".