David Schweikert holds a live push poll (on steroids) and claims it's a town hall

David, David, David.

How disappointing was your performance this evening on your so-called telephone "town hall!"

Not that you should compare yourself to anyone, but at least Senator Martha, having retired from the USAF as a bird colonel, demonstrated some cojones when she had her town hall earlier this month.

Of course I wasn't privy to David's tech operation during the call, but it seemed awfully suspicious that he took NO calls from anyone who dared to challenge him or talk about anything not on his push poll agenda.

And it WAS a push poll. He asked for audience responses by hitting either the One, Two, or Three key corresponding to which issue was most important according to the listener, that Congress should be addressing.

There was the Southern border and all that controversy entails; the federal deficit; and one other. But an HONEST poll would also have included at least a fourth option and probably a fifth. Four would be Congressional oversight of the executive branch. Five would be "any other issue."

Rather than detail Mr. Schweikert's (R-AZ06) policy positions, which really weren't clear from his words this evening anyway, I'll hit highlights (lowlights) of what he said because most of what he said wasn't policy related anyway.

First, he oft repeated that if people were just joining the call (which was not really applicable because his people/tech team called ostensible constituents at the beginning of the hour long call) that they should hit 7 if they wanted to sign up for the Sunday night email newsletter and hit 0 if they wanted to ask him a question. He easily wasted at least ten percent of his time with that repeated admonition.

Then he referred, also repeatedly, to the fact that he was calling from a House Cloak Room which was essentially like a phone booth. With that meaningless drivel, he also mentioned that "if you can hear noise and people yelling" it was because the House was on the floor for votes and he might have to step away from the call to vote.

To that, I would say that I never heard background yelling and the only time he said he actually had gone to vote, he was still talking to a member of his townhall audience.

The only thing he had to say that was even remotely coherent was to use various forms of the expression "the math is undeniable" or "it's all about the math." That accomplished two things. First, it distracted his listeners away from any expectation that he would make any clear, concise, understandable policy statement.

Second, since you're an expert in MATH, David, how do you come up with the audacity to claim (even though you didn't address the issue at all) that the ONGOING ethics investigation you STILL face is nothing but simple math/clerical error(s)?

Honestly David, an honest and forthright public servant (like yourself?) might have gotten off a lot better by having taken some heat from articulate concerned citizens who actually would have challenged you than the cowardly approach you took this evening.

Let's reflect back a couple of years (was it 2017?) when Jeff Flake had the guts to do a LIVE town hall. During the event, he showed remarkable poise and could have gotten through it to run a campaign for re-election if not for realizing that Trump would have continued to harass him throughout for daring to call the buzzard out on his grotesque conduct.

Anyway, I'm hopeful that David and I can have a direct conversation later this week. If we do and it turns out well, I'll let you know.