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Rep. Pete Sessions’ Townhall

Tonight I attend the townhall for Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX).  This townhall had received a great deal press and word was out that MoveOn.org, the left-leaning action group, was preparing to show up en masse and drown out the opponents of nationalized healthcare.  Apparently, many of the MoveOn.org crowd called in sick, got stuck in traffic or maybe had been given the wrong address because they were easily outnumbered 3-to-1 outside the townhall and inside the townhall, opponents of the bill outnumbered supporters at least 4-to-1 and maybe as much as 5-to-1.  I will try to post pictures of the crowd outside in a future post.  Interestingly, there was a very large police presence in and around the townhall.

The townhall itself was not as unproductive as it could have been nor was it as productive as it shouldhave been.  Sessions did a good job of keeping the crowd noise down so that supporters of the bill could ask their questions.  To his credit, Sessions realized how lopsided the crowd was against the bill and told attendees that he wanted the first eight questions to come only from people who disagreed with him.  Unfortunately, he received little in the way of questions and instead had a number of people who rushed to the microphone to simply espouse their support of the bill.  MoveOn.org or any of these other Obama-support groups need to train their people on how to speak in public.  Most of their time was spent preaching to Sessions and the crowd about how wonderful Utopia will be with free healthcare and they would never ask a thought-provoking question. Of the first 8 speech-makers, 6 left the townhall immediately after giving the microphone back which only made them look more like a plant instead of a genuinely concerned citizen.

Since he was not given many questions to answer, Sessions was left to respond to the monologues with what essentially amounted to the Republican talking points.  He did lay out the five key elements of the Republican proposal – healthcare savings/spending accounts and leveling the field with regard to tax implications being the two main ones.  The other key Session message on the night is that we should be focusing on the problem facing the 30 million or so uninsured instead of forcing the other 280 million happily insured to face a national healthcare system.

The whole townhall lasted about 90 minutes and stayed mostly civil throughout.  I never got near the mic, but associated with a number of like-minded folks.  All in all, it was a good experience and I look forward to attending Rep. Joe Barton’s (R-TX) townhall tomorrow night.

I did see a funny quote on the back of several t-shirts…”If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait until it is free!”