Give Me Liberty or Give Me...Meh
A Tea Party "die-in" to protest the tyranny of health care reform turns shockingly polite.
Wed Dec. 16, 2009 4:00 AM PST
Yesterday, Tea Party activists converged on Capitol Hill to stage a "die-in" to protest health care reform. Originally, they'd planned to camp out in their senators' offices and simulate what it would be like to wait in line for government-run medicine. "As the day goes on some of us will pretend to die from our untreated illnesses and collapse on the floor," Tea Party Patriots national coordinator Mark Meckler explained on the group's website. "Many of us plan to stay there until they force us to leave." But instead of leaving a trail of prostrate patriots, the event ended up more like a run-of-the-mill lobbying day for AARP.
At 8:30 in the morning, those about to die gathered on the Hill to receive marching orders from Jenny Beth Martin, a bullhorn wielding TPP coordinator. After issuing assignments, Martin reminded everyone to leave anti-abortion and other off-topic signs outside and to stick to the day's talking points: fiscal responsibility, limited government, and free markets. Soon they were off to navigate the corridors of the Dirksen and Hart Senate office buildings.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Meckler, a California lawyer who's devoted all his time to the movement since February, headed for the office of Sen. Barbara Boxer, who he said has yet to give the Tea Partiers the time of day. At her office, Meckler and two compatriots were rebuffed by a young woman who said the California Democrat wasn't available. "We feel we have a right to speak to the senator," Meckler responded. "We're tired of being ignored. We're here and ready to talk to her. If she's not willing to speak to her constituents, we will tell our national organization. We represent 15 million people. We only need five minutes of her time." No dice.
Meckler politely indicated that he would wait, and the three Tea Partiers settled into leather sofas to watch C-Span. Eventually, Boxer's press secretary came out and offered them literature on the senator's health care positions. Unsurprisingly, that failed to mollify them. Meckler said he'd keep waiting, noting, "It's comfortable here." If anyone was on the verge of keeling over, they were concealing their symptoms pretty well.
While the activists waited, they shared photos of their children and swapped health care horror stories. "I have experience with this kind of thing," Mark Petrina said of government-run health care. He'd spent nine years in the Navy and said he was almost declared AWOL when he tried to get private treatment for strep throat because military doctors wouldn't see him.
Elsewhere in the Hart building, Jim Hehr, a retired industrial fireman from Buffalo, was searching for his senator, New York Democrat Chuck Schumer. Hehr located the right office and took a deep breath before heading in. He greeted the staffers at the front desk and told them that he was opposed to health care reform and thought it was distracting Schumer from his good work fixing the Federal Aviation Administration. The staffers promised to forward his thoughts to the senator.
Hehr had linked up with fellow Tea Partiers Lisa Walker and Laura Sharlin, a couple of sisters wearing American flag sweaters. The three met at Glenn Beck's 9/12 march in Washington, DC and had become fast friends. Walker is from New Jersey and Sharlin lives in Pennsylvania, so next they set off to see their respective senators, starting with Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.). Walker had brought a letter outlining her grievances, which she delivered to a staffer, along with a speech about her opposition to health care reform, property tax increases, and cap and trade.
"He's not listening to us as far as the health care thing," she said. "I don't see why they have to tackle it all at once." She didn't ask to meet with the senator, nor did she perish in protest.
Next stop was was the office of New Jersey's other Democratic senator, Robert Menendez. Walker replayed her speech and delivered another letter. Her passion, it turned out, was driven in part by the economy. She was fired on New Year's Day from a job running the office of a drilling company. Her grown kids are still living at home and can't afford to move out. She was recently offered a job running a big office, payroll and all, for $8 an hour, which is less than her son makes washing dishes. Clutching her FreedomWorks folder, she told her story to Menendez's press secretary, Afshin Mohamadi, who listened seriously. "Not that I'm right. Not that I have all the answers," Walker confessed. "But I want people to know I can't afford this. My husband is an iron worker and that job will probably be gone soon." Mohamadi provided her with contact information for Menendez's health care staffers.
As they turn to leave, the Tea Party trio all but crashed into Chuck Schumer, whom Hehr recognized immediately and buttonholed with a quick line about his opposition to health care and support for Schumer's work on the FAA. Schumer fake smiled and did his utmost to escape into Menendez's office. After he disappeared, Hehr all but jumped into Walker's arms. "I got Chuck!" he exclaimed in disbelief. "He got Chuck! He got Chuck!" the sisters yelled. "Jim drove 800 miles to meet Chuck Schumer," Sharlin explained. He hugs her and they expressed a moment of joy that could have warmed the heart of even the most cynical Washington observer. After he calmed down, Hehr asked the sisters, "Did I do all right?"
Not every Tea Partier was as civil as Hehr or as grateful for even a fleeting moment of recognition. The office of public-option proponent Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) was besieged by two different groups: 80 folks from Cincinnati and another 15 from Cleveland. While the senator didn't meet with the activists, he made his chief of staff, Mark Powden, available to field questions. He also sagely dispatched his constituent services staffer to jump in anytime someone mentioned a lost unemployment check or trouble getting Medicare. She seemed to win some brownie points from the angry crowd. But Mike Prokop, who has been unemployed for two years, set the overall tone of the exchange when he told Powden, "We're highly concerned that communism has reared its ugly head." He wanted to know whether Canadians and other foreigners would get to bump him in line for health care under the reform plan. "Foreigners coming into our country, what line would they get into?"
The discussion then degenerated into a group rant about illegal immigration. Powden tried his best to bat down many of the misconceptions floating around, explaining that the bill would not cover undocumented aliens. Channeling Rep. Joe Wilson, a man wearing a bright red "Got Tea?" shirt yelled "You lie!" He started to look truly menacing, and some of his fellow protesters tried to pull him out of the group. Prokop suggested quietly that he might be frightening the staffers, to which the guy said, "They deserve to be frightened. They don't deserve respect. They're criminals." That prompted Powden to adjourn the meeting.
While the Ohio Tea Partiers may not have gotten the answers they were looking for, they at least got face time with a high-ranking staffer. The California delegation wasn't nearly so lucky. When I checked back in with them after noon, they were still comfortably ensconced in Boxer's office, hoping to get noticed. Instead of dying in disgust, they eventually decamped to see Sen. Joe Lieberman, whose staff promptly threatened to have them arrested.
Comments
Makes Me Wonder....
Submitted by avannavon on Wed Dec. 16, 2009 4:42 AM PST.
Would anyone from Mojo have bothered or cared to observe average people trying to see their elected representatives in Congress prior to the onset of the Tea Party movement?
Not. Oh, boring. People TALKING to their representatives and ASKING hard questions and EXPRESSING their concerns and feelings???
Mojo would have been in the Senate Cage slurping up lattes and you know it!
And as you replayed the blow-by-blow of these earnest Americans just trying to be heard by the people who are supposed to be their representatives, did Mojo have a little tug---maybe just the littlest tug---on the old American heartstrings?
Some memory of "Lassie" or Fourth of July and sparklers when you were kids?
Instead of sucking up to the slick staffers and the slicker pols, did you ever in the course of the day, feel your superior self sinking down to identify with the common folk, because obviously, the staffers and pols consider you just as "beneath" their lordly heights?
Was it, in the end, so "hick" for these people to go sit all day long in Barbara Boxer's reception area, or was it more hick for her to refuse to see people who traveled all that way and made the effort to see her?
Do you think that when they got home to California, they rolled up their sleeves, told their neighbors how they had been treated, and made the commitment to get rid of her? And do you blame them? Maybe Barbara Boxer, like Nancy Pelosi, isn't cool after all. Maybe she's just a dishonest, self-important coward who likes to bully people and feel superior?
And those staffers who wrinkled their fine long noses and "rebuffed" those lowly constituents ---weren't they just the kind of people you'd want living next door? All stuffed up and full of themselves? Arrogant and superior, again, without the least bit of respect for the voters?
Well, Mojo, you R coming along. Slow but sure, the ride is taking you.
Feel that whiff of truth blowing past? This crazy little thrill down your back? That's AMERICA, Mojo. That's the Sleeping Giant. That's what is going to render all the fashions of Washington, all the vaunted insiders, unimportant and obsolete. It's coming.
Better stock up on tea and get used to drinking it.
What a victim.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed Dec. 16, 2009 6:25 AM PST.
What a victim.
Do you have a specific objection to something in this piece?
Submitted by Nick Baumann on Wed Dec. 16, 2009 9:39 AM PST.
I thought it was perfectly fair to the tea partiers. The "die-in" is newsworthy because it was an organized effort to talk to members of Congress. Stephanie never used the word "hick" or even implied it. And she doesn't drink lattes.
Lassie
Submitted by Doc (not verified) on Wed Dec. 16, 2009 9:18 AM PST.
Timmy: "What is it girl? Did Old Man Lieberman fall down the well?"
Lassie: "No, you idiot. I want to play fetch."
"Instead of dying in disgust,
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed Dec. 16, 2009 12:24 PM PST.
"Instead of dying in disgust, they eventually decamped to see Sen. Joe Lieberman, whose staff promptly threatened to have them arrested."
Is this true, or were you joking?
If true, compared to EVERYONE else's behavior in your piece, I think this was newsworthy and should have led your piece. (Especially since I suspect that Lieberman is a Tea Party hero. (Don't know.))
More interesting would have been your asking Boxer's staff for her appointment calendar for the day, and same with Shumer, et. al.,
There is no need not to meet with constituents, and good reason to favor constituent meetings over lobbyist meetings.
Note to Nick: I also picked up some "attitude" from Mencimer's article. The guy who traveled 800 miles to meet with Schumer and then was so overjoyed about it. The naivete of the folks waiting for Boxer. Actually, I think all those folks should be commended, and I don't agree with the majority of their viewpoints.
I think it's bullshit how public figures, especially elected or appointed figures, wall themselves off from the public and make themselves available only to a few appointed media fluffers.
Sorry if it didn't come through better
Submitted by Stephanie Mencimer on Wed Dec. 16, 2009 1:05 PM PST.
but I actually was quite fond of all of the tea partiers I met yesterday, particularly the guy who was so excited to see Chuck Schumer. It was heartening to see someone so engaged in the political process and I absolutely commend the tea partiers for reviving retail politics and forcing their elected officials to have to deal with them face to face. I was very impressed with their bravery. Many of these folks have never done anything like this in their lives and it took a lot of courage for them to knock on those Senate office doors. And I agree that Barbara Boxer treated them poorly. Had I had more time before I had to post the story I would have tried to bug her about that more. But while I was sitting in her office, her press secretary came out to talk to us and basically gave me and another reporter the same spiel he gave the activists, which is that he didn't know when she'd be in.
As for the part about Lieberman, I posted a separate blog item about that yesterday that should have been linked in this story. You can find it here: http://motherjones.com/mojo/2009/12/liebermans-office-calls-cops-tea-par...
Post new comment
MoJo Comments: Send Us Your Feedback
We changed our spam software to better filter comments. Should you encounter any issues, please let us know.
