Monday we went to a Town Hall with Jeff Flake, Republican rep in AZ district 6. It is the fastest growing district in the country. My wife and I were surrounded by a thousand or more right wing Republicans. When a speaker identified herself as a “proud Democrat”, there was a sprinkling of applause from other Democrats like us and the audience was receptive to her comments.
Other speakers included Flake’s former opponent and a doctor in favor of Obama’s plan. A couple of them challenged the audience of mostly senior citizens on medicare, a single-payer government plan they all use. There were some raucous moments but Flake was gracious. He went outside to address the crowd of 500 who could not get in.
Some things said rankled. The person introducing Flake introduced a prayer by referring to the U.S. as a Christian country. There were maybe a half-dozen non-Whites out of the thousand or so there. Everyone around us was hard right but they all taked to my wife, who is Black, and she argued up a storm. I got my two cents in so they knew we were liberals.
The lady next to me had been out protesting with a sign but she listened when I talked about medical care for illegal aliens. Any mention of illegals got the biggest response from the audience. I would guess most of them were from Mid-Western states, retired out here. All in all, it was an experience that stayed with me. I see a lot of very uninformed people who are cutting their own throats economically out of fear of a government they’ve been led to loathe. How much Obama’s race has to do with it I am not sure. The high school girl who sang the anthem was Black and sang it in a gospel style. The lady next to me said, “I like the traditional way.”