Three townhalls

In mid-August Barack Obama traveled to Belgrade to sell his health care — excuse me, health insurance — reform. Citizen Wells posts a good account of the proceedings by commenter Carlyle. Unlike other townhall meetings around the country during Congress’s August recess, there wasn’t much opposition to Obama’s big plans. Carlyle explains: “Everything was orchestrated down to the last detail to make it appear that Montana is just crazy for Obama and government healthcare.”
North Texas Tea Party posts video from a recent Richardson, Texas, townhall that lacked the elaborate Obama staging. The Richardson Health Care Forum was sponsored by four local congressmen. Turnout was impressive and opposition to Obmacare overwhelming. Unlike the Belgrade program, the Richardson forum was “not for faint-hearted liberals.”
Finally, Joel Pollak reports on Obamacare supporter Rep. Jan Scharkowky’s townhall on Monday in Skokie, Illinois. Pollak recounts one highlight:

The one time the congresswoman became flustered was when a man asked her about Section 431(a) of the bill, which requires the IRS to give your personal tax information to federal and state health authorities. Schakowsky ruffled through her “cheat sheet” and paged through the bill itself to find what he was talking about. She was asked about the provision again a few minutes later, and could not answer.

To judge by Pollak’s account of the Skokie townhall, Obamacare isn’t playing in Peoria, but David Axelrod has had a brainstorm to salvage Obamacare. According to Axelrod, Obama will announce his support of an actual Obamacare plan!
Politico reports that “Obama is considering detailing his health-care demands in a major speech as soon as next week.” Up to this point, Obama has been letting Congress do test marketing for a notional product and exploring the metaphysics of a hypothetical program. Obama has been conducting the kind of national tutorial he will bring to the nation’s public high school classrooms next week. And he doesn’t think much of our attitude or deportment.
UPDATE: See also Frank Turek’s “I saw Astroturf grow.”

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