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At his last town hall meeting John Kline might have thrown out his back bending over backwards to appease traditional conservatives, Conservative Constitutionalist Party members, and Tea Party members. The new right is calling for an end to social security, an isolationistic foreign policy, and an end to big government which somehow may be too connected with big corporations. No audience member left the February 19th, 2010, town hall feeling at ease.
Before John Kline started speaking, a woman in the audience blamed the Obama administration for our country “falling apart”. I decided against telling her that Bush’s wars, Bush’s deregulation, and Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy had largely caused our current economic woe.
Advertising the event in the Savage, Minnesota Pacer, John Kline chose Faribault, Minnesota, as the meeting place. Faribault is the home of Mahamoud Wardere, Kline’s GOP challenger. Wardere is an anti-war candidate.
Almost immediately Kline was asked about war and our worldly influence:
Here’s audio:
On your phone and can’t get the player to work? Try this direct link to the .mp3
- Another audience member asked: “You have been consistently voting ‘no’ on every single thing…. There must be something you can vote ‘for’… instead of saying “Nay” all the time.”
Here’s audio:
On your phone and can’t get the player to work? Try this direct link to the .mp3
Here’s audio:
On your phone and can’t get the player to work? Try this direct link to the .mp3
Here’s audio:
On your phone and can’t get the player to work? Try this direct link to the .mp3
Here’s audio:
On your phone and can’t get the player to work? Try this direct link to the .mp3
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Thanks for providing your insights.
How would you describe the crowd … the youngsters probably went to the CPAC convention leaving Mr. Kline to rally the TaxEnoughAlreadyMovement ? From your reporting, it seems that there were more negative questions that at the previous Town Hall meeting.
Being in a Broadband-Dead-Zone, the audio keeps shutting down my dial-up connection, so if Mr. Kline addressed these points, I apologize for asking.
Regarding healthcare, Mr. Kline brought up the Republican legislation.
Did anyone ask him about pre-existing conditions ? That truly is one of the reasons why so many people stay with their current provider. So what does the Republican legislation say on page 145 it calls for a study ! We don’t need a study, we need insurance policies that cannot deny coverage when people switch companies.
Or did anyone ask about the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines … caution better read page 129 and you learn that the Republican legislation is “not subject to all of the consumer protection laws or restrictions on rate changes of the state.” What that means is that an insurer will find the state with the minimum standards required and make that it’s policy … hence it will sell that weak policy to unsuspecting individuals. Generally, Minnesotans are considered healthier (hence living longer and thus potentially more medical conditions that last a long time) and pay higher premiums … how quick will those phone banks be set-up to sign you up for “cheaper” premiums which may sound good until you have a claim. And since, they will not have to comply with Minnesota laws, the state coffers will be a little less since they will not have to be regulated. Lastly, how many patients will die when they shift to lower-priced insurers and then find out the policy denies the medical care required ?
Or, did anyone ask if Mr. Kline agreed with the resolution passed at the RNC meeting : “RESOLVED, that true cost savings be achieved by allowing Medicare patients to opt out of Medicare program to pay for their own catastrophic insurance”
That’s John Kline … not taking us on a race to the top, but race to the bottom.
BTW, Did you know : The five largest health insurers (Wellpoint, United Health Group, Cigna, AETNA and Humana) earned $12.2 BILLION in 2008. That’s up 56% … while serving 2.7 million less members.
And, there have been 400 mergers of health insurers over the past 14 years, so that 95 percent of health insurance markets are ‘highly concentrated,’ which means consumers have little or no choice between insurers.
What makes us think that by allowing insurers to sell across state lines that they will want to … they each have their own monopolies in their individual markets … how can making them bigger make America better. How long ago was it that we heard that “banks were too big to fail” … oh, yeah, that was right after AIG – the re-insurance company failed and Mr. Kline voted for TARP to bail them out.
Hi Mac, the Kline audience did seem more diverse this time. I’ll have to look for CPAC images… was it a youthful crowd? Yes, there were a few negative (about Kline’s performance) questions.
I should have had one digital recorder to capture Kline’s remarks, and one to capture questions from the audience. The only time they brought out the second microphone was for a sure Kline follower.
I sat by Mike Parry, who can be heard grunting and coughing throughout the event. Mike wiggles more than I do, which isn’t a compliment.
Kline didn’t talk much about how he’d fix the health care system, but instead said he’d start with a blank slate. And yes, the health care insurance companies are “unrighteously wealthy”. Thanks for reminding me of that, I did my next post about it.
@admin –
Quick comment on CPAC. It – like so many of these other Conservative events – are really small scale but get big time media attention (consider the national TEA Party convention in Tennessee earlier this month that had attendence of approx. 600). CPAC brings in the heavyweight speakers (Cheney, Bachmann, Pawlenty) to speak to an audiance that is largely too young to be in federal elected office. Look at CSPAN camera shots and it’s mostly young … in fact 2% of the straw poll voters were under 18 with 54% between 18-24.
While the Presidential Straw Poll gets the headline, there are some other tidbits of note. Only 6% felt the most important issue was to lower taxes with 12% selecting it as the second most important. Thus while we hear of the need to cut taxes, this group does not deem that to be as important as “reducing the size of the federal government” and “reducing federal spending” … and the newsworthy item of the week out of the Obama Administration was to establish a Simpson/Bowles National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform … hmm, maybe Obama does get it.
At the bottom of the list with a whopping 1% was “stopping gay marriage” and “reducing health care costs”. Is it the weighting of young respondents (48% were students) that probably encounter more homosexuals in their daily lives and are covered by their parents insurance that drives this low number ? Obviously, they do not run a business and incur the whopping insurance premiums. For that matter, who paid for them to go to Washington to attend this conference ?
So what cuts would this group want to reduce federal spending … DOD with 19% of the budget … or Social Security with 20 % (which last time I checked was still running a surplus in the current years) or Medicare with 13% … hmm, let’s remember those Healthcare rallies and the theme “Don’t touch my Social Security and Medicare” and the Republicans now campaigning on protecting seniors … and the fact that Medicare Part-D was a Bush program. The Republicans may have as big a problem as the Democrats on these issues.
With the commission created by Obama at least he is trying to address the issue.
Now, to the Presidential Straw Poll. Does it really mean anything … is CPAC reflective of the general voting public much less the Republican Primary voter? OK, so Pawlenty can boost how he tripled his vote tally in only one year (from 2 to 6) but isn’t the real concern that 53% of the respondents wish they had a larger field … and that Jim DeMint had the most favorable status (73 Fav 8 Unfav) … if DeMint decides he wants to run, Pawlenty’s Freedom First PAC will be sending its money to South Carolina.
Interesting. I haven’t looked into CPAC and who attends. For that age group, as you suggest, we can tell what they are concerned about now, but not necessarily what they want for the future.
No HCR? We have been talking about that for a long time. But, our nation must be having babies later than we used to… 24 is the age where some folks get married and go WHOA, it costs 8,000 just to have a normal birth? Bring over the midwife, and forget those ultrasounds. We’re in trouble.
The counter message to “too much government” and etc is “we are the government” and “the government works for us”. And does it? I’m watching right now.
[...] I applaud Kline for the effort, I cannot see how Kline’s simultaneously asking for tax cuts (audio, tax cuts to small business) would be a responsible. Tax cuts are not free, and increase [...]