Perhaps we can make this a mother ship diary for reports from townhalls today. I know from FDL that there are a number from around the country. I just got to my computer from one in Chelmsford, MA where officials had to turn away a couple of hundred people from hearing Rep. Nikki Tsongas.
Alerted by the advocacy group, Health Care for All in Massachusetts, that Rep. Tsongas was moving her town hall from a local supermarket (she has been lots of TH's at a local chain) to the actual town hall in one of her communities we went to see the situation on the ground. The starting time was advertised as 10 AM, when we got there the parking lot was packed and it took over 15 minutes to park and get to the back of the line. There were well over a hundred people ahead of us at 9:45 but the line was not moving. Apparently the early entrants got all the space and word filtered back that there was to be another one soon but no more room today.
A middle class, white crowd representing the views of the rainbow from Oabam supporters to the ever present LaR supporters. The Republicans were there (one guy in a hat that said rabidrepublicanblog.com (or some such thing). There were many little debates going on about the benefits and costs of the reform proposals. You could hear scared talk about "socialized medicine". Some signs attacking Obama in various ways. If the crowd outside was any indication of inside, the Congresswoman was in for a rough couple of hours. It is a shame because I would guess that a minority of the crowd was from her district because several converge near the area.
We left at 10:15 with many people still arriving, I hope all stays calm. My office is close by so I could stop and start this diary. I would be interested in hearing what comes after.