Rep. Brad Miller isn’t holding any town hall meetings — but that’s not stopping the Tea Party crowd from protesting him.
As we reported yesterday, Miller is meeting one-on-one with constituents at his Raleigh district office. He wants to avoid the big, organized crowds of hostile people that have plagued other members. This decision was made especially easy after he received a death threat over the health care bill.
As it turns out, however, Miller agreed several days ago to hold a meeting with some conservative activists back home. So now a local Tea Party has been promoting it as a town hall — which it is not — and urging people to show up outside:
“A large demonstration is going to be staged outside of his office during the meeting! We want an ENORMOUS turn out! With our “representatives” on recess, we have a golden opportunity to show them what we think!”
“We’re treating it like it’s any other constituent meeting by the office,” Miller spokesperson LuAnn Canipe told TPM. “And then unbeknownst to us, it’s also orchestrated to get the protestors there and treat it as a town hall.”
Canipe said the meeting is still scheduled for tomorrow: “We’re gonna go forward with business as usual. The Congressman often meets with groups he disagrees with. He’s going to continue to do that, and we’ll see where it goes from here.”
Also, it should be noted that they began doing this days ago, before we reported on the death threat. So there does not appear to be any direct connection between the two events.
