{"id":23268,"date":"2017-02-24T11:00:16","date_gmt":"2017-02-24T16:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=23268"},"modified":"2017-02-24T09:06:35","modified_gmt":"2017-02-24T14:06:35","slug":"congress-members-cant-hide-from-the-voters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=23268","title":{"rendered":"Congress members can’t hide from the voters"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>The phone rang the other night during dinner, it was a phone \u201ctown hall\u201d for U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan (R-7) \u2014 I happen to live in the 7th \u2014 but the timing was lousy and as a practicing journalist, I kind of feel like it is inappropriate as a journalist to participate in such events.<\/span><\/p>\n

And to be honest \u2014 Meehan and his colleagues need to put on their big boy pants and face their constituents, in person, not via phone or some lame \u201csocial media\u201d town hall. They need to look folks in the eye, see their anger and concern and take it seriously. They need to get out of their \u201csafe space.\u201d For Meehan in particular, someone needs to tweak his Google Maps to let him know his district includes Chester County.<\/span><\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Ryan Costello (R-6) faces a similar situation with a planned event in Phoenixville on Saturday. He declined to attend (sources suggest that he was committed to a family event previously), his people saying that the event was little more than a political ambush \u2014 a partisan, liberal event designed to make him look bad \u2014 a campaign spokesperson called it a \u201ccharade.\u201d And yes, it appears that the organizers of the event scheduled it and planned it without checking with Costello to see if he was available \u2014 an \u201cepic fail\u201d in the world of scheduling such things.<\/span><\/p>\n

So yes, in fairness, Costello has every right to take a pass on the event. But he and his colleagues should be somewhere, in person, ASAP. <\/span><\/p>\n

Costello, Meehan and Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-16) should be holding town halls or at least appearing at public, scheduled events \u2014 in person \u2014 too. Sources familiar with Costello\u2019s thinking said that he was hoping to hold a town hall later this spring.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you can\u2019t show the courage of of your convictions \u2014 and calmly make your case, despite folks screaming at you \u2014 maybe it\u2019s time for another line of work.<\/span><\/p>\n

To be blunt, more than once Costello (and dozens of other elected officials) has called me, for an \u201cairing of grievances.\u201d I didn\u2019t dodge the call, listened to his arguments \u2014 sometimes legit, sometimes kind of whiny \u2014 and either I allowed that he had a point, or agreed to disagree (and yes, this column will probably, and ironically, generate another of those calls). To be fair, I like Ryan (actually, while I disagree with him on some issues, I think he is one of the smarter and more principled folks in politics I\u2019ve come across), but I think he\u2019s either listening to the wrong people here, or worse, giving in to fear \u2014 as seems to be the case for many of his colleagues.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be the first to admit that I was a lousy politician \u2014 better cast as a mediocre journalist. First off, I actually said what I thought \u2014 regardless of who it offended (and it offended many, especially in my own party). Second, I never gave it a second thought to pointing out when my own party was acting like corrupt morons (which I did early and they did often, Ed-cough-cough-Rendell). <\/span><\/p>\n

But I also never hid.<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember in 2004 \u2014 in my run for State Representative \u2014 getting a screaming phone call on my home phone from a man in Chadds Ford, castigating me for my stance on abortion. The next day, I was on his door step, offering to talk. And we did. Neither convinced the other to change their position \u2014 but we did seem to create a mutual respect. I can cite dozens of other similar experiences (some of which didn\u2019t go as swimmingly, mind you) where listening and taking a few lumps was the right thing to do, so I did it.<\/span><\/p>\n

So when a mediocre journalist cum-washed up pol has more moral courage than our members of Congress, well, we have a bit of a problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is one of those times where members of Congress need to take their verbal lashing, listen \u2014 disagree where appropriate \u2014 and at least give folks some sense that they\u2019re being heard. Using the tired argument that the events are staged by professional agitators as an excuse to avoid their constituents \u2014 eerily similar to the same arguments Democrats made in 2009-10 \u2014 underlines the disconnect and just makes folks angrier. I\u2019ll also note that reporting this week by The Wall Street Journal<\/em> concludes that the vast majority of the protests are organic \u2014 just like they were in 2009.<\/span><\/p>\n

And yes, I think some of the problem is that Republicans don\u2019t know exactly what to say these days, as I noted in last Saturday\u2019s Politics as Unusual column. Undoing the Affordable Care Act \u2014 Obamacare \u2014 is complex and fraught with challenges. Former Speaker John Boehner underlined that Thursday by noting Republicans would only be able to make minor changes to the ACA \u2014 and that the law was likely here to stay.<\/span><\/p>\n

While repeal sounded good on campaign literature, in practice, it is something much, much harder.<\/span><\/p>\n

And the messaging \u2014 from President Donald Trump, who flat-out has no idea what to do, to Speaker Paul Ryan \u2014 has been awful, leaving the likes of Costello and Meehan with little to work with.<\/span><\/p>\n

But this is where leaders come from.<\/span><\/p>\n

Were they listening to me \u2014 and obviously, that\u2019s not happening \u2014 I\u2019d them to be honest and say this:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cObamacare is a mess \u2014 if we don\u2019t take action, it\u2019s going to collapse of its own weight. The problem is this: how do we fix it without knocking millions off health care and not blowing up the deficit? It\u2019s not going to be an easy task \u2014 and to be honest, we probably oversold how easy it would be to repeal, because frankly, we were just as angry about how it was enacted it as you were. So here\u2019s what I\u2019m asking you: tell me what you like, tell me the things you don\u2019t like and I\u2019ll share them with my colleagues. <\/span><\/p>\n

“It\u2019s not going to be a perfect process or a quick one. But we can\u2019t afford to do nothing, or the entire healthcare system could collapse \u2014 we\u2019re seeing insurers pull out of the exchanges, rural hospitals could close and many of you have seen steep premium increases \u2014 so we have to do something. We need a plan that maintains coverage for as many as possible, without breaking your budget or blowing up the federal deficit. It\u2019s going to be a challenge, but with your suggestions, we\u2019re going to be brave enough to take it on.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Is that going to please everyone? Obviously not \u2014 but it has the value of being true and a lot of folks will see that you\u2019re trying to reach out and be reasonable. GOP Congress members are never going to get backing from the extreme left \u2014 many of whom really won\u2019t be happy until there is a single-payer health care system (which ironically, the insurance industry is doing its level best to force through its greed and stupidity) \u2014 so this is calibrated to appeal to the middle, without alienating the right-wing base. And again, its defensibly honest.<\/span><\/p>\n

So if a hack like me can come up with this, why haven\u2019t those high-dollar consultants the Republicans use come up with even better messaging? Hell if I know \u2014 but it seems pretty logical.<\/span><\/p>\n

What isn\u2019t logical \u2014 or smart politics \u2014 is hiding. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times The phone rang the other night during dinner, it was a phone \u201ctown hall\u201d for U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan (R-7) \u2014 I happen to live in the 7th \u2014 but the timing was lousy and as a practicing journalist, I kind of feel like it is inappropriate as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3325,39,6900,6518,7762,3324,2903,8581,114,8582],"class_list":["post-23268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-aca","tag-congress","tag-donald-trump","tag-featured","tag-lloyd-smucker","tag-obamacare","tag-pat-meehan","tag-repeal","tag-ryan-costello","tag-town-halls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23268"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23269,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23268\/revisions\/23269"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}