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Don't know if anyone here was at Scott Murphy's telephone town hall meeting. Here are my impressions.
I was told there 8300 people on the call. After Murphy gave an overview of what he was doing, there was a Q&A session. Questioners were lined up by the order in which they queued up.
Most important question - HCR. Murphy still says he'll vote against it because he's concerned about how the government is going to pay for the reform. He's especially concerned about its impact on small business.
He's more supportive of the Senate bill because it has less mandates for small business, making it more affordable for them. He's still reading the Senate Bill - he's half-way through the 2000 pages.
The rest of the questions were interesting - unless they were screened out by Murphy's staff, we didn't have any looming crazies on the call.
One caller liked Gillibrand so much that he called Paterson to thank him for appointing her. Now he's unhappy because she's become too liberal.
Other questions were about Rural Broadband access (Murphy says we're getting federal funds for that); standard deficit worries, pro DADT.
There were some conservative leaning questions, but not regurgitated Conservative talking points. Questions on Tort reform, too much government interference.
I thought it was a useful experience. Murphy is very well prepared for the questions and could respond with specifics for each question.
I'm not happy about his not supporting health care. But I wouldn't be surprised if he is getting a pass on this being a freshman rep in a district that just flipped to Dem 2 election cycles ago. |
