Wally Herger Town Hall: The 'Atmosphere of a Revival'

Wally Herger, who represents California's District 2 in the House, held an energetic town hall rally last Tuesday. Here's the local report from Redding, "Health Care Rally Draws Huge Crowd":

North state congressman Wally Herger enjoyed home-court advantage at an enthusiastic and sometimes emotional town hall meeting on health care Tuesday night in the Simpson University gymnasium.

Amid signs like "Keep Barackracy out of our Health Care System" and "Palin is right the bill is evil," Herger, R-Chico, addressed an overflowing crowd of 2,100 people inside the stuffy gym. The air conditioning wasn't working.

At times, the night took on the atmosphere of a revival as Herger worked the crowd into a frenzy, throwing out such names as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Barney Frank.

"I'm opposing a public plan with everything I have," Herger said to an ear-splitting standing ovation.

Bert Stead, 67, of Redding warned Herger that his work won't stop with his "no" vote on President Barack Obama's plan for health care reform.

"I'm a proud right-wing terrorist," Stead said to a raucous cheer. "We don't want government running our business."

There's more at the link.

From the sound of things, the Herger town hall was far more civil and engaging than most of the Democratic town halls we've seen (with folks like Barney Frank and Claire McCaskill upbraiding their very own constituents). But Amanda Terkel, at Think Progress, has apparently gone hysterical over a quote from another report at the Mt. Shasta News, "Congressman Herger Calls Obama Plan 'Threat to Democracy'":

Republican Congressman Wally Herger held a health care town hall meeting Aug. 18 at Simpson University in Redding, where a partisan crowd of over 2,000 people loudly cheered Herger’s position that a public option was “unacceptable.”Although Herger called several times for the audience to “respect each other’s opinions,” those opposed to president Obama’s health care were greeted with cheers while the few in favor were interrupted with catcalls.Herger did not hold back on his opinion of the health care plan and the administration’s appointment of “czars” to head various departments and task forces. “Our democracy has never been threatened as much as it is today,” Herger said to a loud standing ovation ....

After denouncing the Obama plan to wild cheering, Herger offered a few solutions of his own including opening up competition among private health care companies by forcing companies to sell policies nationwide rather than just within individual states, tort reform to bring down malpractice costs and “risk pools like automobile companies” for those with preexisting conditions who Herger conceded are unable to get coverage [emphasis added].

Check the video at top. Herger clearly enjoys getting out there on the hustings with his constituents, and the crowd didn't hold back their exhortations at Herger's rallying cries. While the reports indicate at least one scuffle broke out, Herger shows, ideally, what a town hall rally should be all about. Members of Congress are supposed to represent the interests of the people back home. Of course, when Democratic Members of Congress dismiss the interests of their voters, as has been true so often of late, they court the kind of anger we've been seeing for weeks.

And then for Amanda Terkel to rip one line out of a clearly raucous rally, and then to impugn one gentleman attending, who announced he was proud to be a "right wing terrorist," indicates a complete and utter desperation. Folks on the right have eagerly mocked the DHS report on the alleged threat from "single issue voters" worried about immigration and other policies. And while leftists continue to demonize regular citizens, the administration is now facing the complete repudiation in both policy and public opinion.

It must be hard for Democrats to brought down that low. But it must be especially painful considering that leftists brought much of this on themselves.