The poor Rev. It wasn't a town hall. It wasn't even supposed to be about health care reform, just Coffee with Cleaver. Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver has these events about once a month in various coffee shops around Missouri's fifth district. It is supposed to be a chance for constituents to sit down with their representative in Congress and have one-on-one conversations about things that concern them. This one was a little different.
I arrived around 7:30 am at a little shopping center with a breathtaking view of Longview Lake. The event was to start at 8:00. While driving around looking for a place to park, I could see by their tee-shirts, signs, and flags, that the screamers were there in full force.
I got in line with a woman carrying an OFA We Stand Together sign. We stood in line for about 45 minutes before someone came out and said that Rep. Cleaver was only meeting with people one at a time in a back room and he was not going to discuss health care. (I eventually found out that he was in a little outdoor courtyard around the corner.)
Shortly after this the antis (who seemed to be congregated around the corner) began to chant "Just Say No". People in the line began to counter-chant "Yes We Can". And it was LOUD. Two women came by with signs as we were chanting. "Civility is an American Value" and "Adult Conversation, Please" (Best sign of the day, IMO). The pro-Obama people stopped, then, out of respect for the sentiments.
I personally was okay both with the chanting and with stopping it. We made our point. They knew we were there.
I am not good at estimating crowds. I would say several hundred, but less than 1000, and it appeared to me that the two factions were about equal. If anything there may have been a slightly larger number of people there who were pro health care reform.
I saw two 9-12 teeshirts. There was an organization called Fair Tax which seemed to be heavily represented. There were two people with horrible pictures of Obama in white face with a clown mouth.
There was no violence. I saw a lot of progressives engaging the antis in conversation. I myself do not have the patience, but I applaud the people who do. The good that is accomplished is not changing their minds, but calming them down, pulling people back from the emotional precipice they have worked themselves onto.
The lady with the "Civility is an American Value" sign came over and handed off her sign to me when she left. During the time I was holding it, two righties (I could tell by their shirts) came over and asked almost apologectically, "We were civil today, weren't we?" And I said, "Yes, you were."
If I go to another one of these, I am going to make a double sided sign with "Civility is an American Value" on one side and "Adult Conversation, Please" on the other. I don't think you can educate these people or change their minds, but you can calm them down from their hate and remind them that civility is an American value and that's good for them, it's good for us, and it's good for America.
At the time I left people were standing around conversing amicably. It looked more like a social hour than a scene of confrontation.