U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman is conducting a listening tour so that activists health care providers and constituents can air their views on the repeal and replacement of Obamacare.
Beginning Monday, Coffman will meet with health care providers as well as patient advocacy groups “to gain the perspective of as many constituents, patients and healthcare professionals as possible.”
The listening tour includes telephone town hall meets as well, which we expect Coffman will be criticized for, and probably accused of hanging up early on constituents.
Wait wait wait. I was told phone town halls were unacceptable and cowardly. Or is that only when the other side has them? #copolitics https://t.co/cQ5Xd9mDzn
— Kyle Clark (@KyleClark) February 14, 2017
Coffman, as all of PeakNation™ recalls, was wrongly criticized for leaving the last one-on-one meeting he held last month to talk about Obamacare early.
That meeting was hijacked by activists, so Coffman had to improvise and met instead with five constituents at a time.
He left the 90 minute meeting about six minutes early, but media reports made it sound like he fled the scene.
After we called the media out for that, they are now changing their tune and accusing Coffman of this:
Coffman faced fierce social-media fire in January when he left a regularly scheduled constituent meeting before all of the people hoping to talk with him about ACA had a chance to meet with him face-to-face.
There really is no way for Republicans to score a political win by holding town hall meetings or trying to meet with them one-on-one in a 90-minute window.
The room will be packed with activists who make an ugly scene for the media to cover, and the media will take the bait and post reports blasting the Republican for killing grandma’s health care. Makes no difference that grandma can’t afford Obamacare or that it doesn’t provide the health coverage she needs.
In the end, no one will remember or reward Coffman for doing his duty by holding these meetings.
Except us.