CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

“Town Hall” Pageants Lose Their Luster for Politicians

Photograph Source: Sage Ross – CC BY-Sa 3.0

“The congressional town hall is becoming an endangered species,” Kate Santaliz writes at Axios. As the Congress goes into its late summer recess,  only 11 of its 535  members show such events on their August schedules.

Coming less than three months before all 435 members of the House and 35 members of the Senate are up for election or re-election, the recess seems like a fortuitous, perhaps even urgent, time for the candidates to seek face time with voters. But they don’t wanna. Why?

Part of it, I suspect, has to do with technology.

Social media keeps politicians in seemingly closer touch with their constituents, or at least their biggest supporters and detractors, than “town halls” could back in their heyday.

It’s become cheaper and easier to produce and widely distribute campaign ads of both “short commercial” and “long faux-news coverage” types than ever before.

Some politicians, including “my” “representative,” even do “town halls” by phone. They’re able to carefully........

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