Rep. Pete Visclosky (D, IN-01), on Monday, Aug. 3, 6:30 PM. We invited the public and their written questions. It seems good to share with the Daily Kos readership some lessons we learned.
#1. We sent out Public Service Announcements to the local media a week in advance, and then followed up with phone calls to each outlet the Thursday before the weekend. The event got good exposure.
#2. The topic of Health Care Reform draws the Tea Baggers, no problem. But oddly, it proved somewhat difficult to rouse enough Progressives to attend. We recommend a strong, multifaceted approach. We posted the event with MoveOn and Organizing for America. But, we also blasted e-mail to lists scoured from the 2006 election. In this effort, we succeeded, but barely. The attendance inside was split roughly evenly between Progressives and Tea Baggers. The meeting room filled to its capacity of 110 well before our start time. About 40 Tea Baggers and 20 Progressives remained outside. Both sides had their signs.
Democratic leadership is charging that those who are are attending town halls and questioning their representatives are "manufactured" and are a result of GOP "astroturfing."
( However, those on the left contact their friends in the media, post the event to MoveOn, Organizing for America, and blast e-mail to lists "scoured from the 2006 election." How is that not astroturfing? What is so pathetic is even from a 2006 presidential victory campaign list, they still could not turn out massive numbers to overwhelm those who were there to oppose a healthcare reform agenda.)
...#4. "Don't call them Tea Baggers to their faces in a public setting. Yes, we all know"they self-identified as Tea Baggers early on. But, in a public meeting, it gives them a pretext to take umbrage. Don't go there."
(How nice. However, Rachel Maddow first began calling conservatives who protested high taxes "tea baggers." It is an easy insult, and even the Howard Stern Show does not appear to use the term as loosely as Democratic web forums seem to these days.)
#10. And then in opening remarks, I blew the Tea Baggers' cover. Roughly, it went like this:
Meetings like this one continue a democratic tradition more than 2500 years old, that of the ancient Greek "Ecclesia." The term means "those called out""called out to discuss and decide civic matters, and to defend their ancient Greek city-states, to defend their democracy. And you all were called out by notices in the local papers, radio stations, by e-mail and internet, to discuss Health Care Reform and Clean Energy with our Representative tonight.
So know this: efforts to disrupt and thwart public discourse on civic matters are profoundly anti-democratic. But, that's an obstacle we face tonight. It's public knowledge that groups known as Tea Baggers intend to disrupt and thwart the public discourse on Health Care Reform in meetings like this during this month's Congressional Recess. They want Democracy to fail. So, let's face this obstacle together.
The Tea Baggers' instructions are also public knowledge. If some people stand up, shout out and sit down; if some try to rattle us and the Congressman; if some pretend numeric superiority; if some try to stifle intelligent debate; then we can compare that behavior to the Tea Baggers' instructions and draw our own conclusions.
Hey wait...Mr. Briggs just violated lesson #4, and he called them "Tea Baggers" in public to their face. Was Code Pink "thwarting and disrupting public discourse on civic matters" and were they "profoundly anti-democratic" when they disrupted General Patraeus's hearing? By the way, is Mr. Briggs not giving a set of public instructions for those who organize town halls and agree with his positions?
#11. As it turned out, Rep. Visclosky took one look at the stack of about 100 index cards with questions, and decided to make some opening remarks, and then simply invite verbal questions from the floor, one-at-a-time. His approach worked very well.
Written questions? Such a strategy only invites further censorship from a congressman's staffer. This strategy is very similar to what Rep. Keith Eliison (D-Ill.) did at his town hall meeting recently. He had attendees ask questions one after the other in a bundle. Mr. Ellison would then choose which question of the buch he would answer. It is a political trick to pick and choose which questions to avoid answering in constituent forums like town halls.
After Congessman Visclosky was challenged on the constitutionality of the the healthcare bill, Mr. Briggs seems convinced in lesson #12 that:
"at these meetings, we should raise the point that the Preamble to the Constitution includes the phrase 'promote the general welfare' as one of its key organizing principles."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/weblogs/watercooler/2009/aug/05/online-liberal-activists-strategize
but let's stick to domestic issues..