Seasons Are Defined by Change

Rob Long's piece on the summer's town hall meetings (subscription required) is characteristically humorous, but he's clearly missing something in the American air:

It's strictly a summer affair — when there are soccer games to get to and the weather gets chilly, most of the firebrands will be too busy and distracted to head on out to their senators' district offices to make a little trouble. Who has time, with kids to carpool and work getting stressful and now the holidays are coming, to ink funny hand-lettered signs and Xerox handouts and make the lemonade? No one, that's who. So the town-hall shout-outs will stop — and so will the town halls and office ambushes, for the foreseeable future — and Americans will turn their attention to other things.

Long acknowledges that the healthcare rallies "succeeded" in knocking down the socialistic ambition a few pegs, but from ground-level I don't see the broader reaction to the federal government's power grabs fading. He forgets, glaringly, that the tea party movement began back when there was still a chill in the air; back before people had decided that the summer vacation would be compromised as a "staycation."

I'll admit that I'm a little bit wary of the extent to which the national movement is serving to promote a particular individual (Glenn Beck), but a variety of local groups are planning to take the 9-12 Project as an opportunity to gather on the State House steps this Saturday from two to five. If nothing else, it's an opportunity to help prove Rob Long wrong.

ADDENDUM:

Incidentally, also on the itinerary this week is the Ocean State Policy Research Institute's event, Thursday, with Grover Norquist at the Providence Marriot Downtown.