How to run a town hall meeting on health care
Newly elected Representative Gerald Connolly from Virginia (occupying the seat vacated by Republican Tom Davis) knows how to run a town hall meeting on healthcare. He organized a recent meeting which you can see on C-Span. While he is not the most radical supporter of health care reform, he nevertheless knows how to run a meeting. He has been in public service most of his life and his easy-going style is disarming and infectious. First, after inviting several experts to be present to give brief presentations and answer some details about which he might not be familiar, Connolly fielded questions from the audience, but insisted that residents of the Greenspring Retirement Community, for whom the meeting was organized, should be given first priority. In prioritizing questions in that way, Connolly eliminated the Republican goon outsiders whose focus is always to interrupt the meeting and confuse the participants. No matter though, there were plenty of irrelevant questions that came from the Greenspring seniors. Connolly fielded the questions adroitly and politely and answered them effectively, because he was very familiar with the bill (even though three different versions have passed different committees in the house); he was well prepared, not just to answer questions about healthcare, but he also defended the agenda of a more progressive Democratic Party. When someone asked whether he had read the bill, he could answer “YES” and had the deep knowledge to back it up. When he couldn’t answer a question with sufficient detail to his own satisfaction, he called upon other experts who were in attendance to give more detailed explanations. He insisted that any misinformation would not be tolerated, so he didn’t let right-wing issues of confusion appear without thoroughly vetting them and setting the record straight. When one senior citizen wanted to blame the huge debt we are in on Obama, Connolly set him straight on the dates, the amount, the banks involved and who was in charge when the TARP funds were created and distributed. It was an impressive summary of the Bush administration’s handling of the meltdown and left no room for further debate.
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