Then on Wednesday, Congressman Don Bacon hosted a town hall, the first since the one I attended in Omaha back on May. The event was held at the Fire Barn in Waterloo in a room that only held around 120 people. A campaign staffer apologized for the small venue, saying that they couldn’t get a larger one due to “liability concerns.”
Whatever those concerns might have been, they didn’t materialize as the town hall started. The folks in the room were largely friendly, and there were only a few times people seemed to be yelling out of term (unlike previous town halls where it seemed more the rule than the exception). Many of the questions were on gun control, assault weapons, red flag laws, and racism in America (particularly relating to President Trump). Bacon answered the questions drawn randomly from a box, even if they were from people who hadn’t made it into the room. There were about four or five protesters outside, but the back-and-forth inside was congenial to say the least, even among those who disagreed with the Congressman.
There was also national media present in the room, with folks from the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and even Vice among them. It’ll be interested to see the reporting on the event, since there weren’t the partisan fireworks some might have been expecting.
