Controlling The Script

TPMDC's Brian Beutler gets to the heart of the GOP recess town hall health care ambush plan:

It's hard to know how many member town halls will be (or have been) similarly disrupted, but that's only one of the goals of the protesters. Another goal is to create a narrative in the media about the organic rise of a populist anti-reform backlash; and the jury's still out on whether that effort will succeed.

I honestly think how this is portrayed by the Village is much more important than the actual astroturfing itself. Right now the GOP only needs to organize maybe 10,000 people, you figure 100 protesters times 100 town halls over a month long period. That's a tiny fraction of the total American voting population, but that 10,000 is enough to look like tens of millions if the Village is willing to play it that way.

If the Village is willing to run with the whole "grass roots protest against government health care" story as the truth, then Obamacare is indeed dead. So far, the NY Times seems to be going with the astroturfing.

The Texas protest against Mr. Doggett was coordinated by Heather Liggett, who has worked with the local Republican Party, as well as the state chapter of Americans for Prosperity, to organize antitax “tea party” demonstrations.

When a member of her group saw a newspaper advertisement about Mr. Doggett’s event, Mrs. Liggett posted it on her Web site, she said, and the word spread “like a domino effect” through her network. She estimated that 450 people showed up.

Mrs. Liggett said she was also in touch with conservative voters around the country who were helping organize similar events. “Whether it’s Arlen Specter or Claire McCaskill or Lloyd Doggett, they are showing up in force,” she said, referring to the Democratic senator from Missouri.

Mr. Doggett said he had been ambushed while trying to hold “neighborhood office hours” at a Randalls grocery store, where he usually gets questions about veterans’ benefits or listens to constituents’ advice on how to fix the budget deficit.

“If you look at the YouTube video, you can barely see in the edge of that a beautiful marble tombstone with my name on it,” he said. “People that worked so hard to get their signs in full-color did not come to dialogue. They came to be destructive.” Video of protesters confronting Mr. Specter and Ms. Sebelius in Philadelphia was also quickly posted to YouTube.

Mr. Doggett said: “This is not a grass-roots effort. This is a very coordinated effort where the local Republican Party, the local conservative meet-up groups sent people to my event.”

Some protesters blocked his car, then followed him to another event.

The effort to flood events held by Democratic lawmakers appears to be part of a concerted strategy that began earlier in the spring at the behest of conservative, libertarian and antitax groups.

One group, called Right Principles, which sent protesters to an event in May held by Representative Jim Himes, a freshman Democrat from Connecticut, has distributed a memorandum laying out strategies to “pack the hall” and pummel lawmakers with questions.

For the Village, this is almost even-handed stuff. It's much less of the actual protests than how they are covered that matters. Note the Wingers are trying to pass these off as spontaneous events that just magically happened because America hates the Democrats so much.

But we'll see how it goes. So far, the Village doesn't appear to be buying the grassroots thing.

For now, anyway.