Thoughts on the Oxford town hall meeting 3/21

Overall, Danny Bedwell's town hall meeting was a positive experience. Here are some thoughts on various aspects of it.

I Might Have To Shut You Down
Ten minutes before the start of the meeting, a library employee rushed in to make sure there would be no political stumping. That is, Bedwell was not to solicit votes for himself. If he did, the meeting would be shut down. No one asked why this should be although it was later questioned whether this was even legal. At any rate, we were too busy explaining that Danny would be giving a non-partisan explication of his views on the constitution and government. Satisfied with that, the employee took off.

The real question to me was what prompted this last minute interrogation. Of course, I really don't know. However, I got to the library about half an hour early, and as I was going in, I was stopped at the front door by a guy collecting signatures for a petition to put one of Danny's opponents on the ballot. I explained to the guy who I was and what was happening. I also invited him to come listen to Danny. When the guy realized that Danny's supporters would be showing up, he said he'd just leave since he didn't expect to get any signatures. Now, I don't know if this guy was petty enough to approach the library employees and raise hell, but who knows? Politics is a petty, dirty business.

Danny's Talk
Danny spoke for about 15-20 minutes, mostly on different aspects of federalism. Since I'm personally aware of Danny's views and libertarian principles, not much struck me here in regards to ideas / topics. Rather, I was listening to the flow of the speech and the transitions from topic to topic. On these accounts, Danny nailed it. It was a really smooth, accessible talk.

The Big Surprise: Question Session
This segment was the big surprise of the evening. With 40-45 minutes left, I thought it would be up to the members of the Lafayette Libertarian Party to "prime" the audience with questions the answers to which we already knew. Instead, audience members became engaged and pelted Danny with questions until I had to call time. The questions ranged from charter schools to "acceptable" regulations and taxation. Here, even more so than in his talk, Danny really delivered. His answers were complete and easily understandable to non-libertarians. Really an A+ performance. A few party members did ask questions, but these weren't the canned questions designed to stretch out a perfunctory exercise; they kept the conversation moving.

Turnout
Danny figured there were between 20-25 folks present, and that was achieved only through Facebook posts and word of mouth. Who knows what kind of turnout we could have had with proper advance advertising in newspapers, fliers, etc.

The Let Down
Unfortunately, only a handful of party members came out to Soulshine Pizza afterwards. I was expecting more considering how well the Q-and-A went. Oh well, the pizza was great...

I'd love to see in the comments any thoughts from others who were there or from those reading this.