Report from Senator Sherrod Brown's 'Town Hall'

Correspondent JL writes:

Through a friend of a friend I received an invitation to the "town hall" meeting held by Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH). It was held on Tuesday, 9/1.

My friend and I decided to go, even though it is an hour-plus drive to Cincinnati from Dayton (at rush hour) on a work day.

We had a variety of debates about clothing (Brook’s Brother’s, casual, jeans and polo-shirts?), signs, cameras.

The venue was the student union auditorium at the Univ. of Cincinnati. The event was to start at 10:30, opening at 9:30, and would last until 12:00.

We arrived, parked and walked to the building by 9:15. There were about 100 people standing in a line inside the building, but not yet inside the auditorium at that time.

Workers, I suspect student volunteers, were collecting “sign-ins” seemingly designed for campaign contributions, but perhaps for verification of attendees, or other purposes.

State police were present, with security scanning arches, screening people on their way into the auditorium, which opened at 9:30. The auditorium was described as having seating for 800. At about 9:50 it was halfway full. There were a mix of people: union, identified through their uniform yellow polo shirts saying either USW or UFCW, “Contact Center for Justice Community Organizers”, street clothes, and others mostly older and white.

Signs were not permitted in the hall, but a few were passing out "Health Insurance Reform Now" stickers for attendees to put on their clothes once in the auditorium.

By 10:35, the hall was full and some 40+ were standing in the back, behind the five TV-type camera setups.

The people around me were mixed. Directly beside me were two CEO-Business Owners (a pizza chain restaurateur and a comedy-club owner). Both were talking about the reduction in employment they would have to make if the bill passed (these comments were made to me; they were never given the opportunity to speak to the group).

The first twenty-plus rows in front of me were taken up mostly by supporters of the bill – the uniformed union workers were all up there, as well as various academics, and a few "regular folk." A rotating slide show was pitching the benefits, myths and facts about the proposed health care bill.

Behind me were forty plus rows of mostly anti current bill, tea partiers, and older folk – mostly against. There were three or four rows of "DMZ", which is where I was.

At 10:35 things kicked off. Sherrod Brown, five panelists and an emcee took the stage. The agenda: a few opening comments, then Sherrod, and each of the panelists were to have five minutes of comments followed by an hour of Q&A.

Things started civil enough, although when the CEO of the local children’s hospital went past his five minutes, and into his tenth, the crowd started raising watches, and then clapping (as if his talk had concluded)... and then finally calling for his halt. This was the first major sign of impatience.

All of the panelists were loaded to sell the proposals. All of the slides were selling, yet Sherrod’s remarks supposedly solicited input from all of us with his stated intention to bring our message back to Washington. Most of us noticed the difference between those messages.

By the time Sherrod and his panelists had run out the clock, we had time for only nine questions. The drawing of names appeared even-handed, yet somehow, only two of the nine were anti-socialized medicine while the crowd (stacked though it was) was more 50-50. Anyway, the two were articulate and on-point. I don’t have transcripts, but they brought the house to their feet. To be fair, the three or four that made their points on the other side, brought the other half of the house to their feet.

The two CEOs beside me had given up by this point and had left. Their comments: this is a waste of time, nobody is going to listen. I think at least one of them had decided to reduce their employment (from 540 to 285).

I have videos of a few of the moments as well, but am not sending them in this email as they are quite large files and I do not have the know-how, or perhaps the tools to reduce them from their hi-res to more reasonably transmittable form. If you wish I can email them as well. One is 19M, the other 6M.

Attached are reduced resolution photos. I draw your attention to the slide that says our health care expenses are going to exceed out annual income. Does no-one understand economics (or household budgeting)?

Regards, JL

I've got a new animal for "The Endangered Species List": Blue Dog Democrats. That includes you, Steve Driehaus (D-OH) and you, Sherrod Brown (D-OH).

Here's some career counseling: or, more properly, end-of-career counseling: start scheduling some outplacement services, because we are kicking your butts out of office at the next available opportunity.