Anti-Health Care Reformer Outside Cincinnati Townhall: "Obamacare is America's Chappaquiddick!"

Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-OH) held a second townhall meeting yesterday evening at the Nathanael Green Lodge in Cincinnati, Ohio that was sponsored by the Green Township Democratic Club. This was a ticketed event, so the majority of people, both for health care reform and against, gathered outside the venue prior to the event starting.

The last townhall meeting that Driehaus held was dominated by those who are opposed to health care reform. Driehaus was shouted down throughout the town hall meeting, had a hard time answering the questions that he was asked, and was chased down by a shouting crowd as he left the event.

This time there was a noticeable increase in citizens that came to the event in favor of health care reform. There was a strong union presence from the AFL-CIO and other local labor unions as well as organizations such as Planned Parenthood and Cincinnati Progressive Action. There was also a noticeable increase in people who were advocating for single-payer health insurance which is an option that has been off the table in Congress since the beginning of the drafting of legislation.

People from both sides of the debate gathered outside in order to hold their signs and make their voices heard. Things started out pretty calmly, but soon progressed into many shouting matches and even a death threat. The AFL-CIO had organized various speakers from around the Tri-State area to voice their support for health care reform, but as you can imagine, those who were opposed to health care reform didn't let this happen without shouting out various slogans.

I captured a lot of video from outside the event as I did not get a chance to go inside for the actual forum. I have video of various arguments and confrontations that happened within the crowd that I will be posting soon and I will soon post a confrontation where an anti-health care reformer threatens to kill a gentleman that he is arguing with.

As it is quite late as I am typing this, I will post one video this evening. This video centers around a woman who claims that she voted for Obama in November and is a registered Democrat. She claims that she has "seen the light" and was "duped" by Obama during the campaign. She came out in opposition to health care reform (and programs like Welfare as you will hear), but most striking is an analogy that she kept shouting. You will hear that she keeps shouting "Obamacare is America's Chappaquiddick". This is an obvious reference to the infamous incident which involved the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) back in 1969.

The odd thing about this is that the analogy makes no sense to me other than to assume that the only reason that this woman is shouting this phrase is to try and tie the death of Sen. Kennedy (which happened earlier yesterday) with her argument against health care. This is yet another example of ridiculous arguments and sayings that make no sense, yet are injected into the debate on health care. In this case, a totally unrelated incident is referenced for the sole purpose of trying to tie in Sen. Kennedy's death from earlier in the day and enrage supporters of health care reform, the same cause for which Kennedy fought for, for the majority of his life. Here is the video and be sure to check back as more will become available:




This piece is crossposted here.