On The Relative Civility of Obama's Grand Junction Town Hall

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by: Colorado Pols

Grand Junction Sentinel columnist Bill Grant has a worthy take:

Rep. Steve King must have gone to bed a disappointed politician Saturday night. In a churlish online letter to The Daily Sentinel on Wednesday, King bragged, “the fact is most people in Mesa County will listen to the president on Obama-care the same day the president listens to JUCO on throwing a baseball. It is just not going to happen.”

We can only imagine what King thought his constituents would do instead of listen. Descriptions of the sandbagging of Sen. Bennett by a hostile crowd at a meeting in Pueblo, or the organized show of “spontaneous” resistance seen in congressional districts in Colorado and around the country probably provide the best models of the behavior he encourages. Nice behavior to enhance the public image of Grand Junction on national TV, not to mention the insult to the democratic process.

Calling the president’s proposal “socialized medicine” and the public meeting “an invitation only, scripted town hall,” King puts himself squarely in the Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck school of non-thinking, ditto-head politics.

Meant to stop health care reform by stopping debate and intimidating politicians, this approach is more likely to simply drive a wedge between this vocal fringe element and people of all political parties and persuasions who recognize the growing crisis in health care and the need for serious reform.

It turns out that the most scripted part of the meeting was the undercover operative from conservative state Sen. Greg Brophy’s office who challenged Obama to an Oxford style debate. His dishonesty in not disclosing his affiliation suggests that another generation of young Republicans is continuing the Nixon-Rove school of politics. King is an eager pupil of their tactics…

The people King confidently predicted would never listen to Obama not only listened, but cheered him on. From the rousing welcome that greeted him, to the standing ovation at the end, people from King’s district and beyond listened with care to what the president said, and agreed with most of it.

Most of those who disagreed on some issues, did so more through reserved silence than boisterous objection. The occasional boos were few enough to be individually heard. Nobody tried to shout the president down. King must have been disappointed by this show of civility.

It seems there was a difference in the mood inside all three of the Obama town halls from the chaotic scenes everyone has watched play out at congressional recess events around the country. Some are quick to attribute this to some kind of biased selection process for ticketholders, but there’s no actual evidence of that–as the presence of Sen. Greg Brophy’s staffer, and many others who disagreed with the President indicates. It further underscores, in our opinion, the weakness of agitating crazies to unthinkingly shout down your political opponents on complex issues: once confronted authoritatively, your mobs become a liability.

We think that, when you get right down to it, most people just don’t have the stones to ask the President to his face why he “wants to kill Grandma.”

More good observations on Obama’s Junction town hall at the Colorado Independent.

9 thoughts on “On The Relative Civility of Obama’s Grand Junction Town Hall”

MesaModerate says:

August 18, 2009 at 5:53 pm

Interesting. Bill Grant didn’t seem to give a hoot about “enhancinig the image of Grand Junction on national TV” when the Vice-President came to GJ last year. In fact, he was there egging on those who liked to compare Cheney with Nazis. Ironic.

As for the Greg Brophy staffer thing, you’re missing the larger point. Grant says that the crowd was civil and cheered Obama when he arrived. What was the make up of the crowd? They were hand picked from places like Telluride, Aspen, CU BOULDER (i.e. Brophy’s staffer), etc. The White House assumed if they gave a ticket to a student at CU Boulder they’d be a kool-aid drinking hand clapper. Funny how a student at CU Boulder got to attend the event but the State Representative who’s district the meeting was held in was turned away at the door. Even though she had a ticket:

http://www.gjsentinel.com/hp/c…

I’m so glad we have a Whitehouse that’s so focused on transcending the partisan divide.

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1. Ralphie says:
  
  August 18, 2009 at 6:18 pm
  
  She thought she was “on the list.” And she was.
  
  She was on the list to pick up a ticket, like everyone else who got tickets through Salazar’s office. She never picked it up.
  
  Nowhere in the article you cited did it say she had a ticket.
  
  And no one without either a ticket or press credentials was even admitted to the parking lot, let alone the event.
  
  Bradford just screwed up.
  
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  1. ClubTwitty says:
    
    August 18, 2009 at 6:40 pm
    
    the brightest bulb in the pack…
    
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2. ClubTwitty says:
  
  August 18, 2009 at 6:43 pm
  
  are you saying only folks from Mesa County should attend?
  
  Guess what, the Western Slope ain’t the dark red place it use to be. Rep. Salazar won even in Moffat County…of 15 West Slope counties at least four went for Obama and Garfield was basically split.
  
  MesaImmoderate I must conclude–you really haven’t a clue about those things you have a propensity to spout off about…
  
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  1. dukeco1 says:
    
    August 18, 2009 at 8:03 pm
    
    I haven’t seen you post in a while.
    
    I stood in the Central High gym with a couple of my liberal friends and discussed the large number of folks in the audience whom we know that are conservatives/Republicans. A couple of friends even came over to me to comment about the nasty things said conservatives were saying before and during the event.
    
    There were a couple of times when the “angry ones” had a chance to applaud one of their own and it seemed that 10%(or so) of the audience fit into that category.
    
    I think the reason no one (except the guy who was an aide to Sen. Brophy, and has also been accused of being on Cory Gardners’ campaign payroll) tried to disrupt the proceedings can be attributed mostly to cowardice, not courtesy.
    
    I stood in the back, but my wife sat in the crowd and related to me the truly despicable things that were said by the couple in front of her. I think it was the fact that they were so clearly outnumbered that kept them from standing up and spewing their venom. Maybe the dozen or so very stern looking men wearing sunglasses indoors and the many sheriffs’ deputies throughout the room may have played a role.
    
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    1. ClubTwitty says:
      
      August 18, 2009 at 8:09 pm
      
      and soon a diary…
      
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    2. RedGreen says:
      
      August 18, 2009 at 8:16 pm
      
      But has he been indicted on that charge yet?
      
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      1. dukeco1 says:
        
        August 18, 2009 at 9:23 pm
        
        but I am sure it must be a felonious activity ;-).
        
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3. divergent_tdog says:
  
  August 19, 2009 at 7:04 am
  
  I live in Mesa County and was at the town hall meeting on Saturday. I knew a lot of people there, and they were from the western slope. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
  
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