Face To Face With The Folks
by digby
It’s hard out here for a Governor:
[A tavern] in Madison, WI confirms that on Friday night, Patrick Sweeney (one of the owners) politely asked Scott Walker to leave the establishment when other customers began boo-ing him. A bartender at The Merchant said that, “his presence was causing a disturbance to the other customers and management asked him to leave.“
Gott Laff explains:
I won’t link directly to the restaurant because, along with enthusiastic support, it is also getting threats. I’m sure those are from the very wealthy, lazy, hammock-swinging, resort-lollygagging, ungrateful union thugs who utterly resent all the anti-Walker passion
This is very uncivil, I’m sure, but it shouldn’t result in threats to the restaurant owner fergawdsakes. It’s a part of being a politician, although I don’t think most modern politicians have experienced this as much as those in the past may have. It’s becoming more common. Recall this incident, from the other side:
Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson and his wife were leaving dinner at a new pizza joint near their home in Omaha one night last week when a patron began complaining about Nelson’s decisive vote in favor of the Senate’s health care bill.
Other customers started booing. A woman yelled, “Get him the hell out of here!” And the Nelsons and their dining companions beat a hasty retreat.
I think it’s probably not such a bad thing for our politicians to experience some authentic, spontaneous derision from their constituents outside the ritualized forms we’ve created like Townhalls and talk radio. Governors and Senators especially are usually treated with such deference in their daily lives that I expect experiencing something else in the course of daily living might bring it home to them more viscerally than it otherwise would.
Obviously, no one wants this sort of anger to get out of hand. We know where that can lead. But these people aren’t royals and a little righteous verbal feedback in a democracy is a healthy thing.
Update: Evidently, there is reason to believe this didn’t happen to Walker. The point still stands, however.
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