Tennessee Organizers Take to Town Halls

Tennessee Action Satisfaction!

Tennessee Health Care Campaign ramped up the activation part of its "inspiration, education, motivation, activation" strategy this summer.

Making Contact

July was spent continuing to activate our volunteer media teams to write and submit letters to the editor and to contact local TV and newspapers to offer critiques about their coverage of health reform and pitch story ideas. The result was dozens of pro-reform pieces appearing in news outlets in every corner of the state -- not to mention building confidence in supporters that they were having an impact.

By August we were all ready to take a break from armchair activism and hit the streets. And, boy, did we!

Tumultuous Town Halls

We shadowed Tennessee's Congressional delegation at 20+ town hall meetings across the state, which truly brought out the good, the bad, and the ugly -- as well as the beautiful -- in this debate. We took every opportunity to distribute positive information and engage in civil conversation-and mostly succeeded. Taking the high road won us points with media and many regular (an understandably confused) constituents who wanted real information. In all cases, having pro-reformers asking questions at these meetings helped counter mythology and keep our side in the mix.

Rallies That Rocked - and Rolled - Over the Anti's

For those who may be unaware, Tennessee, not Massachusetts, is home to modern-day Tea Partiers. So, it speaks volumes about the commitment of progressives here that we outnumbered the anti-reformers at every turn --even on their so-called national day against health reform. Our actions ranged from street corner rallies with signs and chants, to speakers in a park, to candlelight vigils, to parading through a downtown farmer's market with signs and leaflets. We had 13 public rallies in six cities in about 25 days. In most cases, we got TV and print news coverage, too.

Never Too Late to Educate

We made presentations to more than a half dozen groups and had three public education forums that featured a relatively calm exchange of information and ideas.