Town Hall'n It

Regardless of his politics or what you think of the current Stimulus plan, I have to say that it's (sadly) impressive that President Obama held his town hall rally in Elkhart, Indiana. What's not impressive is that I've never heard of that city...the impressive part is that it turns out that Elkhart has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, as 15% of the people are unemployed (tripled in the last year). It also was not a city that voted for Obama in the general election, and supposedly none of the crowd or people who asked questions were prescreened. This may not seem like much...but to me it's a huge symbol of progress. Normally politicians only speak in favorable environments, where local politicians or groups select who gets to attend, and people asking questions (if even allowed) are scripted or put in place by the speaker's team. It is being reported that none of this went down today...that it was simply first come first serve, and the people asking questions were not operatives of Obama. He actually seemed to be talking to the people and honestly answering their questions/concerns as evidenced by the lady who asked about Obama's cabinent tax controversies. It looked like either she was being booed or hushed or something, but Obama said it was a valid question and went on to address it. Pretty cool that so far he seems to be maintaining his connection to the public that was such a large part of his campaign.