Hide And Go Sherrod

Ohio's Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown held a town hall meeting on health care earlier today at the Ohio State University Medical Center. This may come as something of a surprise to you if you're not on a left-leaning mailing list such as "Organizing For America."

The Senator's office did almost nothing to publicize the event, other than sending e-mails out to groups likely to join Brown in supporting Obamacare. There was apparently no advance mention of the event on Brown's official website.

Shelby Holliday of UWIRE was at the event (you can check out her Twitter feed of the event here), but apparently spent much of her time outside talking to people who couldn't get in because it was being held in a small room. Some of the people she spoke to in her story and whose remarks have been reprinted elsewhere seem to suggest the Senator's office was actively trying to avoid letting the details on this event get out.

One woman said, “We’ve been calling every day trying to find out where there’s an event and could never get any information from any of the government offices.”

A man told Holliday, “I’ve actually contacted my Representative’s and Senators’ offices asking when there were going to be town hall meetings and got no response. Then last night, I received an e-mail that was forwarded from a friend of mine that said ‘hey look, they’ve been sending out these e-mails to groups of Obama supporters and other liberal organizations.’ The e-mail was just forwarded on to me and I forwarded it on to a few other people. That’s how I found out about it. Otherwise I wouldn’t have known.”

Ms. Holliday talked to Sen. Brown after the meeting and received all kinds of reassuring words about how accessible the Senator and his staff are. Apparently not all of his constituents would agree.

You can watch her full story below.