After avoiding his district for the first half of the recess, Congressman Dan Boren, the only member of the Oklahoma Congressional delegation too dim to figure out he's a Republican, emerged from his hidey hole to conduct three Town Hall Meetings in McAlester, Muskogee, and Pryor.
Boren's 2nd CD is in eastern and southeastern Oklahoma. I'm in central Oklahoma (where I'm "represented" by Tom Cole). So Boren is not my Congressman. And having done my duty and attended a Cole Town Hall last week, I didn't drive the two hours plus to get to one of Boren's yesterday.
Reports suggest that, at least for my blood pressure, I made the right call.
On health care, Boren appears to have out-teabagged the teabaggers who flocked to his town halls.
"I am a no vote," he told the crowd in Muskogee (fun Oklahoma journamalism note: observe how this "news" story refers to "the proposed health care reform measure by U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif"....subtext: what're you gonna trust, Oklahoma values or California values? Though to be a little fair to the reporter, who probably doesn't realize that Pelosi is not actually writing the legislation, it was probably Boren himself who mentioned her as the enemy).
According to KGOU, our local NPR station, Boren also repeated deather talkingpoints. Second CDers will be happy to know, he's agin those Democrat death panels, too!
And he made clear that a public option would be a terrible idea because employers would find it cheaper to let employees use it....and pretty soon we'd have single payer. And of course he's against that, as well!
At the end of the day, it probably would have just been simpler for the distinguished gentleman from Shawnee to extend his vacation and set up open mikes for teabaggers and deathers around his district. Might as well cut out the middle man!