As hoped for yesterday, I made it into the Tom Daschle town hall meeting. Well, at least the second half; standing room only. Here are the fairly unedited notes I scribbled--err, typed frantically when I got back to my office:

Daschle seemed less partisan than the crowd; was fair in assigning blame for the collapse of the Democrat's resistance to the election recount and refused to refer to it as manipulated or "stolen;" pointed out that it was Gore's campaign that ultimately ceased to press the issue, not that the Republicans had somehow jilted the system and pulled a fast one (which is what the questioner seemed to want to have echoed). [note to those who would argue with me on this: I'm only reporting what was said; I'm woefully underinformed and underopinionated on the election issue. Frankly, it's history...actually, that seemed to be Daschle's point; it's history, the Supreme Court ruled, and this is a country built on the rule of law, and while you may not agree with the law, you must respect the law and the decisions that derive from it]

Overall:

It kind of felt like a campaign stop; using questions as springboards for general policy issues as opposed to any real kind of dialogue. Every answer begged a dozen more questions but none could be asked. Bit of cheerleading; several questioners tried hard to lead or bait Daschle into taking hard partisan positions, and he demurred.

He also had a bit of chutzpa in criticizing the practice of exporting jobs in the TV/film industry overseas in order to reduce production costs, saying he wants to see these jobs come back home; a complex subject in a major animation studio, as so much of our work depends on overseas studios. The obvious follow up question that couldn't be asked is: how? I wanted to know if he felt sanctions of some sort were the answer, or tax incentives for American companies, but, these questions couldn't be asked.

Regarding intellectual property, it seemed assumed that the room was in favor of vigorously defending the rights of IP owners and eliminating or reducing the reach of those who attempt to violate those rights. Again, no lengthy interrogation of the issue was possible. He did mention China by name, which tells me he's thinking more along the lines of pirated CDs, DVDs, and the like, and less so of file sharing. Hard to know.

Health care was brought up; he is in favor of some kind of universal coverage. Again, the looming 'how' of all this remained utterly unaddressed.

While the intention of the town hall meeting is admirable, one unfortunate by-product of its format and limited timeframe is that the meeting really does sort of seem to take on the aspect of bullet point, or Power Point presentation. The appearance of interaction and dialogue is somewhat misleading. To me, there were so many implications raised by the questions and Daschle's comments that are in fact the really crucial things to be discussed. Again, HOW do we do what we all might agree sounds really nice? Sanctions? Higher taxes? More vigorous prosecution of those who violate IP laws? There was no substantive discussion whatsoever.

The looming spectre over the whole entire meeting seemed to be the perception of the Democrats as impotent, with Bush and Rove and company the thousand pound gorilla squashing all who challenge them. There was a fair amount of frustrated shaking of heads and pinched desperation in some of the questions asked, and no shortage of sanctimony on the part of a couple participants. Daschle didn't capitalize on nor provoke it. He was, in short, seemingly one of the least partisan people in the room.

I must say it's something to be in the room with such a hugely public figure; one so intimately enmeshed with public policy and the most vaunted chambers of the US government. It does--to a certain extent--soften the hard glare in which I and I'd guess many others see our representatives. While there are indeed substantial debates to be had--which are not adequately being had--and while I might find much to disagree with him and others on, he made a positive impression on me and it's hard to square that with the unfortunate charicaturing that sometimes seems to pass for public political discourse. I guess the point here is that in this way alone, these meetings are useful: we are reminded that the people who represent us and whom we read in the news day after day are at least a little like us, and probably not hell-bent on the destruction of all we hold near and dear, even if they do support school vouchers or higher taxes or whatever is your hot button issue.

I should probably edit that, but what the hell...you get the almost-was-there-blogging-in-real-time effect. And anyway, I'm no reporter.

In discussing the meeting with someone afterwards, we realized how much this actually felt like a campaign stop, and I think this is where I do have a problem with how this town hall meeting was presented. It was more as if the questions were mere springboards to Daschle's various policy ideas; okay in and of itself, but a lack of true dialogue seems a bit antithetical to the idea of a town hall meeting, at least inasmuch as the ghost of Jefferson hovers around whenever Town Hall Meetings are mentioned. More worrying: why was a senator from South Dakota speaking to a California crowd at Disney? Where is Feinstein? Where is Boxer? This, more than anything, suggests that this was a part of a long, gradual windup to a run on the presidency.

Regardless, it was definitely interesting and illuminating, and I'm all for more of them. Even if it is some devious partisan ploy by corporate America to give a leg up to its friends in Washington (where's Hollings damnit???), it still gives us working stiffs a small window in on that whole mad world, a world two and a half thousand miles plus a few light years away, and that, as it's mediated by our trusty media!