DeGette To Hide From Voters

Maybe this is the new 21st century and I'm just out of date, but I hadn't heard of it before. Instead of an in-person town hall meeting in a properly sized venue, Congresswoman DeGette (D, CO-1) will be taking calls which will be well-filtered beforehand.

The format for being possibly heard, is to sign up for a kind of conference call in which you get to listen to DeGette and a friendly moderator hold forth on the wonderful job she's been doing, providing you with the Porkulous bill, the Cap and Tax energy bill, Cash for Clunkers, and soon, nationalized health care. And let's not even begin on the wonderful tax hikes on the evil rich. Here's the format:

• Thousands of constituents are called and asked to stay on the line to join a live telephone town hall with U.S. Rep. DeGette.
• For those who submit this form with your phone number, you will receive a call.
• Those who remain on the line will hear U.S. Rep. DeGette and a moderator.
• People who wish to ask questions can press a button on their phone and be connected to a staffer who puts the constituent into a ‘queue’ along with others who have questions.

In addition to your phone number, they ask for your zip code. If you think they might actually let you ask a question, use 80201, which is within her district, otherwise the friendly staffer will likely put you into the queue for don't call us, we'll call you.

In a real live town hall meeting, questions that the politician would normally brush off are sometimes met with widespread murmurs, (grumbles, shouts, etc) of agreement which were not what the pol expected. This lets him know that he's missing out on an issue. The telephone format eliminates this, and the friendly staffers insure that the pol and anybody on the conference call will hear only the party line. This isolates the pol from the dissenters, and the dissenters from each other, encouraging the pol, and stifling dissent.

Of course it also saves the bother of having the police eject noisy voters, or, in some cases, provide the pol with cover during his or her escape. Thanks to Jed for the link.