David Broder says town hall antics will backfire.

[Hamlette]

Alger was the first Republican congressman elected from Texas in the modern era, winning a Dallas district in 1954. In 1960, just a few days before the presidential election, he was part of a crowd of several hundred people who surrounded Lyndon B. Johnson, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, and his wife, Lady Bird, when they arrived for a luncheon at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas.

Many of the demonstrators carried signs labeling the Texas senator a "Judas." Alger's placard read: "LBJ Sold Out to Yankee Socialists."

As I later wrote, the Johnsons "were engulfed by the crowd, and for more than half an hour, were reviled and jostled as they slowly made their way across the lobby. Johnson refused offers of police assistance, telling an aide that 'if the time has come that I can't walk with my lady across the lobby of the Adolphus Hotel, then I want to know it.' "

The backlash was instant and powerful. As conservative columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak later wrote in their book about Johnson, the scene in the Adolphus "outraged thousands of Texans and Southerners. Sen. Richard Russell of Georgia, who had not campaigned for his party's national ticket since 1944, telephoned Johnson that evening to offer his services." The Johnson biographers concluded that while no one could prove the case, it is "a credible hypothesis" that the Adolphus incident swung Texas and perhaps other closely contested Southern states to the Democrats.

snip

What doesn't make the news is what the reaction is among the larger population of voters whose views will ultimately influence the fate of health-care legislation.

I haven't seen any polls taken since the demonstrations began, but an editorial in Tuesday's Detroit Free Press said "the disrespect Dingell was shown in a state where he has made such a profound contribution was unforgivable."

There have been many such editorials. And at least some Republicans are beginning to notice.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/12/AR2009081202576_pf.html

I used to love Border but for the last several years (all of the Bush years?) he's been dreadful/wrong. I hope he's not wrong about this.

[Bleacher Creature]

1. Crap, if there's a worse predictor of public opinion than Broder, I'd like to know.

Who knows, maybe I just missed that epic political comeback for Bush. . .

[pansypoo53219]

2. butbutbut

bobo is always wrong. they will work then.

[pnorman]

3. I've read quite a lot by him on the internet during the past 8 years or so,

with little if anything that I'd find satisfactory. He struck me as one of those former liberals, who've been blinded & co-opted by AIPAC propaganda. Joe Lieberman is another of that breed, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I voted AGAINST him in 2000.

But what Broder said about LBJ then, made much sense. It amounts to having faith in the ultimate good sense of the American people. Without that, what's the use? Few if any here on DU, have a pecuniary stake in the success of the Democratic Party. We're all here agitating for principles, aren't we?

pnorman

[masuki bance]

4. Both gallup and pew show something different

http://people-press.org/report/535/






http://www.gallup.com/poll/122276/Town-Hall-Meetings-Generate-Interest-Sympathy.aspx

[TheKentuckian]

5. Protesting is acceptable and important

shutting down debate IS UnAmeican as all get out and then some.

[BlooInBloo]

6. Aw shit. We really are doomed.

[opihimoimoi]

7. No we Not.....The Pubs will lose...they are doing everything in the book to become UNATTRACTIVE

Beautiful people far outnumbern the unattractive

[hatrack]

8. Broder - Glib, Shallow, Stupid

He's David Brooks' bald uncle who lives in the attic.