Counter-memo
If right-wing protesters are going to show up and yell at their elected officials during town-hall meetings, then left-wing activists need to start coordinating with those representatives to provide them with “cover,” says a four-page memo distributed by Health Care for America Now (HCAN), a coalition group supporting President Obama’s recommended plans.
Conservative groups who help mobilize like-minded people to oppose proposed health care reform legislation have outraged Democrats, left-leaning think tanks and blogs, in light of their success in spurring contentious town-hall meetings that have been filmed and uploaded to the Internet. Much to their chagrin, video clips of conservative activists in Pennsylvania and Texas chanting and booing their elected officials have become a symbol of public angst over Mr. Obama’s agenda.
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has even accused conservative organizations of distributing “rent-a-mob instructions” on how to protest the president’s health care plans. As evidence, she pointed to a mailer from a group called Right Principles.
To help push back, HCAN — whose members include ACORN, or the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union, the National Education Association and the National Council of La Raza — issued some instructions of their own. The memo, e-mailed Tuesday to HCAN’s 120 field staffers in 44 states, encourages activists to contact elected officials before public events to plan ways to pre-empt the opposition.
“Ask the Member’s staff what would be most helpful and talk through a strategy for making sure the right messages don’t get drowned out by chaotic protesters,” field director Margarida Jorge advised. The memo’s introduction says she has “years of union organizing experience” and has “laid out tactics for people attending town halls to follow to blunt the right.”
Another one of Ms. Jorge’s tips is to “Address the [member of Congress] directly with a positive message: Remember, these Members need cover and they are getting beaten up by right wing zealots in these meetings.”
HCAN Communications Director Jacki Schechner said protecting elected officials who support their favored reforms was necessary given the contentious nature of some town-hall meetings.
Ms. Schechner said conservatives are baiting lawmakers into holding town-hall meetings, “so [lawmakers] can get yelled at and they don’t want to feel unsafe and uncomfortable.”
“They don’t want to put themselves out to be bait for pushing and shoving, that’s not dignified discourse.”
British warning
British Conservative Daniel Hannan begged American college students not to let their country “go into the direction of socialism” and let the government take over the U.S. health care system during a conference sponsored by the Young America’s Foundation (YAF) at George Washington University on Wednesday.
The students were well acquainted with the British member of the European Parliament; he became a media sensation earlier this year after delivering an eloquent and hard-hitting rebuttal to Prime Minister Gordon Brown that many U.S. conservatives thought was equally applicable to President Obama.
Mr. Hannan warned the students not to let the U.S. government implement any kind of government-run health care system in his Wednesday address. “Do not think you can experimentally introduce a state option in health care and think you can get rid of it if you don’t like it,” he said.
He said his nation’s health care agency, the National Health Service, was “Marxist.”
“I’m not using Marxist as a swear word,” he said, explaining it was founded on the principle of providing care “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
“We have no rights as consumers,” he said. “You are treated as a supplicant and expected to be grateful for what you get.”
He wrapped up his speech by telling the students that the world has a “stake” in America’s success using the Jeffersonian principles of governance his nation once heralded. “I plead with you not to throw it away. … If I see that vine withering here then, truly, there is no hope.”
“Inviting Daniel Hannan was a no-brainer. He’s a firsthand witness to the failures of European-style socialism,” said YAF spokesman Jason Mattera. “It is too bad Obama didn’t send his advisers to our National Conservative Student Conference to hear Mr. Hannan’s lecture. They would’ve learned a thing or two about how big government policies ruin lives and suppress freedom.”
New Romney book
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, also a 2008 Republican presidential contender, is writing a book about American exceptionalism.
“Romney, a successful businessman and leader in the Olympic movement before entering public service, describes a new generation of challenges and the innovative steps it will take to maintain American pre-eminence in the world,” said a statement from his publisher, St. Martin.
“No Apology: The Case for American Greatness” will be published in 2010.
• Amanda Carpenter can be reached at acarpenter@ washingtontimes.com.
• Amanda Carpenter can be reached at acarpenter@washingtontimes.com.
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