Republican Offers Lessons on Taking the Heat

[Rose Siding]

Back in their home districts, House Republicans lately have been getting hammered with hostile questions about President Bush's plans for Social Security. This past week, Rep. Jack Kingston (Ga.) offered a tutorial on how to handle the heat.

"Have you been getting hard questions at town hall meetings?" Kingston's office asked in an invitation to GOP press secretaries and other staff members to a "mock Social Security Town Hall Meeting." Over a pizza lunch, Kingston, the vice chairman of the House Republican Conference, offered to play a beleaguered congressman getting grilled by constituents.

The e-mail invitation was passed on by a Democratic source who professed incredulity that Republicans now need rehearsals for town hall meetings.

The idea for the event, Kingston assistant Righton Johnson said, was to show that there are good answers to the tough questions members are getting when they go home. She said the answers emphasize "why Social Security is broken and what needs to be done to fix it." While Kingston invited staff members to role-play -- pretending to be ordinary citizens -- most of the 45 GOP hands who showed up did not get into the theatrical spirit and instead just asked more conventional questions about political strategy, she said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50417-2005Mar19.html

[Robbien]

1. GOPers have been protected from real questions for four years

Not one real question has been posed to them by the corporate elite media and the GOPer's staff has protected them on the campaign trail.

Of course they need lessons.

[Cha]

5. That's why it's so thrilling when I read

this..regarding what the rw george will had to say..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3307696#3307770

[Melodybe]

2. AH HA HA HA Stick it to them, Bush doesn't even have a fucking plan

He just wants to raid the SS treasury, other than mumbling some shit about private accounts there is no meat to his SS plan.

Funny, I love that SS will turn the tide even more.

[coloradodem2005]

3. Let them get hammered. HARD!!!!

[CoffeeCat]

4. How moronic can you be? Rant!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey Republicans!!

Instead of marketeering and soundbyting your constituents to death---WHY DON'T YOU LISTEN TO THEM FOR A CHANGE?

While you big dopes sequester yourselves around big, granite tables--"re-framing the debate" and sloganeering the hell out of your bad ideas--why don't you start representing your constituents!!

We are not sheep to be herded!!

We are not impressionable idiots--waiting to be swept by your pre-packaged, bullet-pointed, manufactured, public-relations Social Security scheme!!

We are not empty containers waiting to be filled up with "user-friendly", "easy-to-understand" catch phrases.

We've had it!!!

Just how dumb do you think we are???

Just shut up and listen to the people you are supposed to represent!!

Stop listening to the ill-informed bantering of politicians who instruct you to argue and counter our opinions and concerns.

Listen to us!!!! You represent us!!!

If you can't represent "We The People", and if you insist on parroting talking points from a few politicians who could care less about America and her people--then step away from political office and allow someone else to respectfully represent and honor the people in your state!

Sheeeesh!!!!

[ellenfl]

6. but

We are not impressionable idiots--waiting to be swept by your pre-packaged, bullet-pointed, manufactured, public-relations Social Security scheme!!

51% of us are!

some of them are learning tho' i think it's a hoot that grannies are beating the repugs by not letting their grandkids fall for this bs.

ellen fl

[confludemocrat]

7. What a dumbass WAPo story

the idiotic premises given here are anything but touching upon what is really going on here:

they are training their pod-people to withstand any talkback about their bald-faced lying in order to carry out the ideodemagogue agenda of destroying Social Security. This is about how to brazen it out on the march toward getting the job done of wrecking this great model successful social program that exemplifies what they believe needs to be effaced from the earth.

How to drown an egalitarian society in the bathtub so stupid white men can retake the smidgen of absolute total control of anyone else not strictly in that category that they have relinquished or had wrested from them in the last 100 years.

Have I forgotten to say this weekend how much I hate these people? (with apologies to Mike Malloy)

[Rose Siding]

8. I was glad to see this reported

It tells pretty much the same story you describe. (and it was leaked by a dem)

That the repubs have to be schooled in how to survive conversations with citizens on this dog of a policy, is something everyone should know about.

It concedes that on their own, these elected officials have failed miserably in debates with average people. The policy is SO bad that the woman on the street is able to win the debate, so they are flailing around, resorting to role playing in an effort to bulk up their side of a losing argument.