Ok, so I went and wrote the whole damn thing up for my freshly-minted blog. The entire story's pretty long, so here's the summary:
(snip)....
I have to confess, I was nervous. I'd never done anything like this before. Before I came, I took all the Democratic bumper stickers off my car because I knew I was going into a "red" area. I was worried I was going to be the only person asking hard questions – especially because W's Social Security townhalls are limited to "supporters only."
Well. The appointed time rolled around, Mr. Hensarling introduced himself, and we were off. He gave us a thirty minute presentation on what he saw as the Social Security basics, which was highly in favor of the President's proposal, and then it was Q&A time. The first person lobbed him a softball.
But THEN—boy! Every person in that room was on him like a duck on a junebug. It was teeth and claws and long knives all the way. I was amazed to hear person after person, armed with printouts from the internet, question the basic assumptions he'd made, mention Alan Greenspan's take on it, wonder where the extra money to make the transition would come from, and basically, trash the entire idea six ways from Sunday. I didn’t even have to ask anything. Every single question I had was asked by the people in that room. And they did NOT sound happy, either. Actually, I was a little surprised that Mr. Hensarling left that room with all of his extremities intact.
I was impressed. Everyone who spoke was well informed, came armed with facts, and had a good point to make. Several made their points with heartfelt passion. If the other constituent meetings are anything like the one I attended, our representative will be going back to Washington with a real earful and maybe not quite so much enthusiasm for the President's plan. Here's hoping.
(snip)...
For the complete play-by-play:
http://practicalactivist.blogspot.com/2005/02/report-on-social-security-town-hall.html