rssIs the GOP Blind to Potential Town Hall Backlash?
Thursday, August 13, 2009 at 11:32 am
- 7 Comments
Republicans have been only too happy to encourage the town hall protesters who’ve interrupted so many health reform forums — and made so many headlines — this week. But Washington Post columnist David Broder has a cautionary tale for GOP leaders: A similarly boisterous protest against President Lyndon Johnson — staged at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas in 1960 — might have energized those doing the protesting, but it alienated other Republicans who were watching the spectacle, humiliated, from afar.
The backlash was instant and powerful. As conservative columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak later wrote in their book about Johnson, the scene in the Adolphus “outraged thousands of Texans and Southerners. Sen. Richard Russell of Georgia, who had not campaigned for his party’s national ticket since 1944, telephoned Johnson that evening to offer his services.” The Johnson biographers concluded that while no one could prove the case, it is “a credible hypothesis” that the Adolphus incident swung Texas and perhaps other closely contested Southern states to the Democrats.
The comparison is apt. The crowds descending on the town hall discussions have been larger than lawmakers expected — and certainly more raucous — but there’s no indication that the most vocal detractors represent anything but a small minority of folks who didn’t vote for Barack Obama and now want to air their frustrations over his victory. The evidence comes from the detestable signs, the off-topic rantings and the general sense that many are participating only to disrupt the discussion rather than take anything from it.
It all makes for riveting TV, but “what doesn’t make the news,” Broder notes, “is what the reaction is among the larger population of voters whose views will ultimately influence the fate of health-care legislation.”
It’s this much larger group that Democrats should keep in mind as they continue their health reform push. And if Broder’s right, Republicans would do well to take that advice as well.
7 Comments
Pingback posted August 13, 2009 @ 2:25 pm
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Comment posted August 13, 2009 @ 3:59 pm
Does these people remind you of the crowds that protested the Civil Rights Bill?? The same lies the same tactics and some of the same people. Is this what the Republican party wants?? Lie continue to lie till someone gets hurt? And the faux christians what are you teaching your kids? You lie long enough scare long enough you will get what you want?? Republicans I can not wait till 2010 that will be the end of the republican party I can not wait to piss on it's grave
Comment posted August 13, 2009 @ 4:05 pm
As usual, Broder is wrong. The numbers of “moderate” Republicans have dwindled to the point that any “backlash” they could engender wouldn't ever come to the level of the Teabaggers. Broder lives in a fantasy world where there are plenty of reasonable “moderates” in the Republican party that are just itching to put the yahoos in their place.
Comment posted August 13, 2009 @ 10:38 pm
Uh, is the date wrong, or is the title wrong, LBJ being a Senator & future V-P/Pres. in 1960?
Comment posted August 14, 2009 @ 1:42 am
Uh, is the date wrong, or is the title wrong,
The events at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas transpired in 1960 during the presidential campaign when LBJ was Kennedy's running mate.
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