While many of his Democratic Congressional colleagues are faced with cacophonous opposition at their town hall meetings, Peter DeFazio, the R-G reports, was greeted by a relatively placid crowd at the first of his 14 town hall meetings on the subject.
The meeting took place in Cottage Grove, a place about whose political demographics my knowledge is not firm. I believe it has a slight conservative alignment, though, so the reception DeFazio got is a bit surprising.
Contrast that to fellow Oregon Rep. David Wu’s reception at his first town hall in McMinnville, which you can read about at the Oregonian’s Web site. The video embedded with Jeff Mapes’ story is a bit frustrating to watch because it gives only snippets of the debate. It’s worth watching, though, for the moment of discomfort and frustration on Wu’s face at about 2 minutes in the video — we dinosaur journos are often skeptical of the merits of multimedia in our stories, but this moment shows the value of moving pictures I guess.
Anyway, if you want to get in on the action, DeFazio’s holding more town halls across the district between now and Wednesday. For a full schedule, you can read the preview in the R-G by the Emerald’s own managing editor, Emily E. Smith to get the full schedule. Yeah, I’ve always wanted to use “hoopla” in a lead too…
However, the location of DeFazio’s Eugene town hall has since changed. It was originally scheduled for the City Council Chambers, but it has been moved to the Eugene Hilton to accommodate more people. It’s still at 5:15 p.m.Tuesday, though. It will be followed by one in Springfield’s City Hall at 8 p.m. on the same day.