My Experience at JK's Waltham, MA Townhall--With Pics! :)

[ObamaKerryDem]

Hey everyone:),

Yesterday's town hall event in Waltham was absolutely amazing! The forum was, like some of the articles done about the event in the press afterward pointed out, in a very intimate setting comparatively. They had a regular podium for JK set up on the stage--with the U.S Senate seal--but JK did not use it once! Instead he took to the seat set up right in the center of the room, alternating between that and walking around the front of the room as he was speaking. I was fortunate enough to get a really good aisle seat in the 3rd row so I was close enough to maintain eye contact pretty much the whole time (as a lot of you already know, JK has this really keen ability to personally connect with his audience in a way where he makes you feel he is talking to YOU--I don't get, again, the "aloof" meme at all!--and to get some really great pictures!:) I took a bunch,but here are my favorites:











There was a lottery for the question and answer portion of it and as luck would have it, I ended up having my number called, about mid way through! I had received many great ideas for questions from a lot of you on here and on Facebook and used them to come up with a more general question about the very recent budget "deal" (I wanted it to have flexibility/to be able to be added to in case someone asked it first!). But before doing so, I took the opportunity to compliment JK on the--I think I used these words, lol--"fantastic" floor speech he gave Friday, just before the shutdown was averted. I told him how much I and all who support him appreciate his service and that "Teddy would be proud". He beamed as he thanked me! :) I totally added in that part as I went along, lol, but it felt right, especially after JK had alluded to Teddy in his opening remarks. He gave a really thoughtful, detailed response to my question--about where the budget negotiations stood at this point, after the deal to prevent the shutdown--and what could and could not be negotiated. He had touched on that quite a bit before they got to my question--that, basically, he was not willing to balance the budget on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens--but further emphasized that point in his response to me. He pointed out, however, that what was negotiated Friday was pretty much set, that this week and beyond starts a whole new set of battles. One being Paul Ryan's "Pathway to Prosperity", which JK so cleverly re-labeled, "The Pathway to Poverty"! :D You probably all already realized this long ago, but JK is absolutely PHENOMENAL in the townhall setting! He really shines in this format. VERY few of his remarks were prepared. Most were totally off the cuff as the questions came along and they varied greatly--though many were regarding the budget, a lot of other issues were covered--a lot of local issues pertaining to here in Massachusetts--health care, education, etc--everything from that to the current situation in Japan and of course, in Libya. And he was able to give a sharp, informed response to each and every single one. He's able to explain and expound on things so well, but in a way most anyone could understand and take in, even if they were not already previously following up on these issues. I really think that if he weren't already so awesomely fulfilling his role as Senator or in politics in general, he'd make for a terrific professor! :) No small wonder the Bush camp did not want to go against him in a town hall style debate in '04 (there wasn't one, was there?)...he absolutely excels in this format. Well in speeches and general debate too, but maybe here especially. Again I do NOT get this "cold", "aloof" meme. He is anything but! Yes of course it's rather intimidating getting up the nerve to ask a question in a forum like this--just because he is in the position he's in..and I admire him so much--but as most of you already know, he is such a friendly, warm, welcoming presence. There is NOTHING "arrogant" about him; he's very genuine. The people who buy into these memes just do not get it..because most of them have not seen it. I wish the media had let more people see him at these sort of events in '04!

He also made a lot of really great points about the Tea Party types, that they "do not connect the dots", that "facts just do not seem to matter to these people". But that we can beat them and groups like Citizens United with "people power". The only place I really differed with him was his position that they (the Tea Party) have "really legitimate concerns about the deficit", etc. He touched on this in the LKL interview he and Teresa did, about a year or so back. I really, really respect and admire him being so magnanimous towards them--and it's a great, gracious view for a leader to take especially--but I just can't find it within my heart or mind to give them that kind of credit. Where were they during the Bush years? But JK pointed that out, more or less, in his followup, pointing out that it's "just easier" to "blame the Government for everything" then it is to look into the facts, beyond the anger. He is absolutely correct on that count!

So I had an absolutely fantastic time! It was such a privilege to see him in this sort of setting! I'll never forget it!

[Mass]

1. Thanks for posting this. I have tried to find a coverage of this meeting,

but, with the exception of the wicked article I posted earlier, I could not find anything.

[ObamaKerryDem]

3. You're so welcome! :) It's so frustrating how even a lot of the local media here..

..fawns all over Scott Brown but with JK--who is actually bothering to go all over the state to meet with constituents, whilst their chosen one Brown is out signing books (which IMO he has no business yet writing...WHAT has he done so far? They griped about Obama, but he had done SO much more even earlier on than Brown has thus far. Another "guy I wanna have a beer with!" celebrity) and doing the View--crickets. Grr!

The local officials who were there also gave JK a tremendous introduction! The man who spoke said something like "There are many, many problems in Washington at the moment, but the solution is our great Senator John Kerry and the incredible leadership he has shown"..something to that effect. It got a huge round of applause! It was a very progressive feeling group. There was one man there who looked like he could be a Tea Party type--he had a shirt on that said "The voters are coming" or something like that--but he did not say anything, he was listening very attentively to the Senator as he spoke though. Maybe he had an impact on him?

There was also a family sitting in front of me at the very beginning, with a little boy--couldn't have been more than 8 years old--who was SO excited to be there! He had a question all written up for JK and everything. He kept asking "When's Senator Kerry going to be here?" and--my personal favorite-- "It must be so stressful for Senator Kerry, having to do so many events like this!" :) His number ended up getting called too, not long after mine...but they had already left! The father was grumbling the entire time--I don't think he wanted to be there--so that might have factored into it. Either way..:(! But so refreshing to see someone interested in politics at such a young age--future Democratic leader? hehe

I also got to meet Roger Lau before the event started--got their wicked early because I'd left my house on the first train out, not wanting to risk getting there late as I had never been to that area before and as a lot of you know, the MBTA on Sundays is very slow, lol like three hours between each train! He is so nice! It was a fantastic experience all around. And I'm still smiling from getting to tell JK that, about Teddy! Have been wanting to tell him something like that for a long time. Was going to when I met him in October, but it completely escaped me in the moment! That meant a lot to me..and I was glad it could make him smile, too. :) And I completely meant it. He is following his example so well!

[TayTay]

17. Thanks for this

I actually had a temp job this week and couldn't post. I am so glad you saw Roger, he is simply awesome.

wonderful write-up!

[ObamaKerryDem]

5. Can you all see the pics, btw? I had a devil of a time posting them!

I had uploaded them from my Blackberry to Facebook and Twitter pics, but had to put them on Photobucket to properly link them here in this thread. They show up to me, but I just want to make sure! :)

[karynnj]

7. Yes and they are great

Your question was great, especially, but not just, the well deserved praise.

I really is a shame that the Boston Globe, so willing to editorialize that there are no MA "Congress on your corner", again did not cover this. That makes three substantial town hall this year. Far better than the photo ops of the junior Senator on his crappy book (the Louisville Courier published the first chapter and the writing is pretty poor - yet he paid a writer to write it. ( http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=news&cd=16&ved=0CG4QqQIwBTgK&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.courier-journal.com%2Farticle%2F20110312%2FFEATURES06%2F303120009%2FChapter-One-Against-All-Odds-by-Scott-Brown%3Fodyssey%3Dtab%257Cmostpopular%257Ctext%257CFEATURES&rct=j&q=Scott%20Brown&ei=TVGjTa-KIsu70QGt-ryNBQ&usg=AFQjCNEpJN3OVUcsaXHaWGXHE086IFnhqQ&cad=rja )

[ObamaKerryDem]

10. Thanks! It meant SO much to me to be able to tell him that..

..both on my behalf as well as everyone's (I think we all share in that sentiment). And I even got applause from the audience as I said it! That felt really great too--there was so much positive energy in that room for JK and Democratic/Progressive politics in general. :) Plus I had wanted to tell him something like that really badly when I first met him in October (before the Senate floor remarks of course, but I mean the general sentiment, about Teddy..and just our gratitude for JK's excellent leadership in general), but it slipped my mind in the moment! I'm glad I wrote my question down at the townhall! :)

SO infuriating that the Globe ignored this--and they are supposed to be "the liberal media" (yeah right)! :thumbsdown: Fluff prevails over substance, yet again..*sigh* I still refuse to believe that Brown is some sort of shoo-in for next year though. He's going to have to explain a hell of a lot..and he more than likely is not going to have a Democratic opponent away on vacation in the Carribean, either. Plus he has to hold up over a full campaign cycle..a Presidential one at that (no matter what, unless something goes REALLY wrong, Obama is more than likely to win MA again).

If he had been running against JK last time, Brown would've been trounced, I am convinced of it. If JK does indeed stay in the Senate for the '14 race (barring any potential SOS appointment as is the rumor..though I regard it as just that until something more official comes along, but just saying), I am going to go all out volunteering for him! He is just THAT great. :D

[ObamaKerryDem]

12. Oh fwiw, and JK also mentioned the "Inside Job" documentary..

..when the subject of Wall Street and that awful Supreme Court ruling about corporations and campaign dollars came up. He recommended it and asked us all to "request it on Netflix or whatever you use". I thought that was pretty cool as well! So much for Michael Moore's complaint in 2004..I guess it came about when JK said on LKL that he hadn't seen "Fahrenheit 9/11". Moore seemed to take it as an insult, but from what I remember of JK's interview, it just seemed to me as an honest answer, that he hadn't gotten a chance to see it. He was awfully busy running for President!

Now that I mention it, have any of you seen Moore's other documentary, "Slacker Uprising", about the '04 election? I thought it was way too harsh on JK in parts. Took a lot of the RW memes and ran with them in parts, like the thing at the Grand Canyon. That irritated me that Moore did that, I must say and labeled JK's campaign as "uninspiring". That ruined it for me, personally! :)

[karynnj]

14. I didn't see Slacker Uprising - or even hear about it

It sounds like pay back.

Kerry's comment on F911 actually was more than not having enough time - it was also that he lived through that. He went out of his way to say that he was completely uninterested in the film.

I think overall F911 HURT Kerry, as it would any Democrat running. If you look at the favorable/not favorable ratings (not the approval ratings), well over half the people had a favorable impression of Bush. As with Obama, that number was higher than his approval rating.

The "connect the dots" sequence in F911, which was very flippant in tone, is basically making the case that is sometimes called Bush Criminal Empire or Bush evil empire. No one on DU would ever have missed the various posts with long back up articles that define each of those dots. Even here, only a majority connect them and believe that in its most extreme version - that GHWB and forces aligned to him took over the US and used the country's power for his own purposes. That is what the connect the dots sequence does.

F911 was LOVED by the far left and much of the left, but not even by all Democrats or left leaning Republicans. I saw this first hand because a book club I belonged to at my liberal reconstructionist synagogue decided that we should all independently see it and then discuss it when we met. Like most Jews, most were liberal Democrats - and all but one who was undecided were for Kerry. ALL hated the movie. I was uncomfortable with that part, but thought other parts - like showing the impact on Iraq and showing the recruiting effort in the slums of Detroit -were very good. Most were genuinely disgusted with the inferences from the connect the dots part - did not believe the dots were true - and objected to the "lines" drawn. (I felt weird mentioning BCCI, which many remembered only vaguely as a scandal involving Bert Lance, who worked for Jimmy Carter.)

While I know it is dangerous to extrapolate from one completely atypical, not representative group, it does mean something when a group of people, most not for Bush starting before he was sworn in, thought the movie unfair. This tells me that it fails the test of being able to swing a NEUTRAL person to become an anti-Bush person. In fact, I think it is that and other things from Move on, ANSWER and the like that led to Kerry being seen as at least as guilty of negative campaigning as George Bush. In reality, the Bush campaign was far more negative - and that is excluding the SBVT - just as I am excluding MM, ANSWER and moveon - even though there was more coordination on their side.) In fact, Laura Bush condoned the SBVT lying because worse things were being said about GWB - and this well publicized comment did not cost her any popularity.

I suspect that Kerry's unwillingness to say anything positive about the film was both political and also his honest opinion. In his own BCCI and Iran/Contra reports, he wrote only what he had 100% solid proof on. I suspect this is both his praiseworthy temperament and his background as a prosecutor. Not to mention, he himself often experienced people taking "facts" on him, giving them the worst possible motivations and then making inferences by adding them together.

The sad thing is that that part loses people who might be made to think by the excellent work done in Detroit and Iraq. MM clearly thinks that his attack on Bush was useful, but I think it likely alienated many people who liked (or even did not hate) Bush. Many of them did not want to see the leader, they thought was protecting them and who was still President, as evil - and that was where MM (and significant parts of DU) were.

[ObamaKerryDem]

16. I must say, I agree. I think Moore is good, unbelievably good, at energizing the base..

..or at least the more ideologically set element of it. Whether it's in regard to an election, or an issue, he is great at communicating the message and getting people involved on an activist level. But I think you are right when you say he's not a help with the center/independents. I've lost count of the independents, even more seemingly liberal leaning ones, I've seen around and/or talked to personally, who seemed to show at least some sympathy, at least on a human level, for Bush after those parts of Fahrenheit. And although I believe most of what was in the film was true (if not that part, then the others, particurally the Iraq and Flint parts, which as you pointed out, were excellent), it kind of played into a lot of RW memes and criticisms, the whole "Angry Left" meme, for instance. And like it or not, most of the people who liked the film were already set for JK anyway. I notice how Obama didn't really "use" Moore either. Totally different set of circumstances by that point, '08 vs. '04 in many ways of course, but still I think you're right. Plus JK (like Obama) just strikes me as the kind of person who would want to check it all out, outside the claim in the film, before forming a solid opinion. His background in law probably did come into it, which of course is commendable as he did take a risk in that remark--however objective--of turning off people in the base who were in LOVE with Moore and that movie. Moore even made a remark in that book he wrote just before the 2008 election, in his advice to Obama, on how he could LOSE the race, "distance yourself from me", was on of the items on the list, then he referred back to JK saying that in '04. That was right around the time "Slacker Uprising" came out. So it's not hard to believe that it probably WAS payback. Moore does seem to have a shorter fuse when it comes to things like that, he doesn't like to be rebuffed it seems, even indirectly. :)

But the fact that he turned off even some commited liberal Democratic voters with that part..is even more eye opening. And speaks to the downside of his style and approach.

I used to be a really big fan of his and I still agree with a lot of things he says, though I think he takes it too far sometimes and has been really unfair in his criticisms at points, like with JK and more recently with Obama. He's been really, really harsh on him lately. I too have had my criticisms--most everyone has, that's natural and really if you think about it, a necessary part of even a support of someone, that they HEAR from the base, etc--but Moore doesn't seem to be missing a single opportunity to take a swipe. Like recently on his Twitter, after Kloppenburg won the race in WI (before the recount...grr..but that's a whole other thread! lol), he tweeted something like "This proves that we don't need Obama. O=Voter depression". Yeah it's a fair point that voter dissapointment with things like the HCR debate, etc made a difference in MA in 2010 (though I would argue that Obama coming to MA HELPED Coakley, who was as much as 12 pts as I recall behind in some of the polls before that after Brown started taking the lead) and in the midterms, but I think that's far too harsh a statement. And that's just the beginning of it. He's repeatedly basically compared Obama to Bush, on multiple occassions.

I also didn't like how he beat up on Chris Dodd in "Capitalism: A Love Story". Don't get me wrong, I think it was a great film in so many ways and I'm not saying Dodd was without any criticism at all...but it just felt like piling on at a time and point when Dodd was already getting it from a lot of angles and feeling the pressure to step down (which he of course did). I just didn't feel like it was necessary or effective. It's almost like it was Moore's way of saying "See? I'm critical of Democrats too!" Kicking up the heels of his Green party roots, lol. Of course I was already irritated with him about what he said about JK in "Slacker" by that point, but just another example. :)

I still like a lot of Moore's work, but I'm not enamored with him as I used to be...and see the criticisms. I don't think we should be the other side of the same coin to the inflammatory people on the Right...and some of what he does runs that risk, IMO. I guess things like what I pointed out and what you also pointed out in your post brought me to that point.

[Blaukraut]

2. It sounds like you had a wonderful time. Thank you for posting! n/t

[ObamaKerryDem]

4. My pleasure! :) I had a fantastic time! n/t

[ProSense]

6. Great photos

Absolutely wonderful recap of your experience.

This should be coined: "The Pathway to Poverty"

Thanks for sharing these.

:hi:

[ObamaKerryDem]

11. Thank you--and you are so welcome!

I loved the "Pathway to Poverty" too..JK is so great at coining these phrases! :D

[politicasista]

8. Thanks

for photos and everything else. Agree with you about the Tea Party, but glad you had a great time.

[wisteria]

9. Thank you for the post!!!n/t

[MBS]

13. This looks great -- w ish I could have been there!! n/t

[ObamaKerryDem]

15. Aww me too! :( Wish we all could've been! It was fantastic! n/t