Keep the pressure on.  I have lived in Rochester, Minnesota for the past two months since taking a position as a surgical fellow at the Mayo Clinic.  This is the epicenter of first world medicine… the type that offers hope to the hopeless.  It’s a place where patients come for help… not to present an insurance card, sit in a waiting room, have some meaningless tests and make a follow up appointment to repeat the fruitless process.  Solving problems is the focus here, not paper pushing and navel gazing.

So imagine my surprise when I phoned my new congressman’s office several weeks ago to find that no town hall had been scheduled here, at the medical mecca, to discuss what will be a sweeping overhaul of health care as we know it.

What I got was the quintessential Washington runaround.  I badgered the office for several days.  I was told he may or may not have one.  If he did decide to hold the meeting, they said, I should look for the announcement in the local newspaper!  I mentioned that it is unacceptable in the internet era to send constituents to the local newspaper to dig for information that could be readily disseminated via the congressman’s website.  I also let them know that I would be calling the office on a daily basis to learn of the particulars of the event once known.

My efforts (and those of other like-minded individuals, no doubt) were not in vain.  Last Wednesday he announced the town hall on the website.

Congressman Tim Walz (D), of Minnesota’s first district, will be holding the town hall meeting tonight, August 20 from 6 – 8 pm at Mankato East High School, Mankato, MN.  The address is 2600 Hoffman Road, Mankato.

Anyone within driving distance should make a point of being there.  The democrats still have the numbers.  I am more scared now than ever that some monstrous “compromise” bill will pass, complete with buried provisions, mandates, taxes, disguised public option mechanisms, etc.

This is the fight of our lives.  We must cede no ground.

Equitare

Much has been made recently of the need for RedState to become a more welcoming place for conservatives of all stripes, new and old, particularly as we proceed into the next phase of battle against all that Obama has in store.  RedState is a real sanctuary for so many of us.  I couldn’t agree more.

As I mentioned in my previous diary, I have come to conservatism in my late thirties after years of indoctrination at the hands of a full court of naked emperors, specifically the east coast media and so-called “elite” universities. I was a pretty hardcore liberal in Doc Martens and pseudo-intellectual coffee-sipping splendor. That was before I had to make a living in surgery.  But take pity on those such as I… we didn’t know any better. And more importantly… we’ve come around.

We all come to conservatism via different paths. But I will tell you that those of us who come from liberalism are often the ones most to be feared by the left. We know their arguments. We understand their weaknesses. I wasn’t born into these ideas… I reasoned my way to them. And I live these principles at great personal cost.

Swamp Yankee can tell you how difficult it is to be a conservative in places like Cambridge. You have to choose your battles at cocktail parties… be persuasive but diplomatic (or not be invited back). Ask me about the kind of patience it takes to politely dismantle the arguments of a man sitting next to me at dinner who makes a point of telling me that as a doctor I am his “public servant.” I have these sorts of maddening social interactions on a regular basis. I am a feminine, conservative woman, so of course I refrain from slapping these people in the face (smile).

But liberals beware. There is no zeal quite like that of a convert. What better example than Ronald Reagan himself? Our standard bearer and hero, the man who righted our nation’s course… President Reagan thought his way to conservatism as well. A registered Democrat early in his life, he was an admirer of the New Deal and a union leader (SAG). He supported Eisenhower and Nixon without changing that affiliation.

Then came his own political awakening.  Reagan’s time at GE was spent writing, thinking, speaking, and clarifying his positions. He read economics, history, philosophy. And he came to some conclusions — the same conclusions that any educated freedom-loving person would draw about limited government, solid defense, and the miracle that is American exceptionalism.

He was a convert. He became dangerous to the left. And the rest is history.

Which brings me to Sarah Palin. I was a reluctant McCain supporter as of August 2008. I got behind him without enthusiasm and felt a bit of envy for the excitement my friends and family were enjoying for their candidate, Mr. Obama. But what choice was there?  I supported McCain and gave to the cause as I felt he was clearly the least of the two evils presented.

Sarah Palin’s entry into the race was a real watershed for many conservative supporters like me. The jury is still out for me on her viability for 2012. And in the end 2012 doesn’t matter right now. I have said before that I perceive her to be a truth-teller and political powerhouse who gets it about conservative principles.

She gets it. She preaches it. And she can sell it. Tell me: what is there is to reject in that?

Palin galvanizes the people like me… the thinking true believers in the style of Reagan… the converts. We’re not zombies.  We’re passionate.  Most importantly, we act.

We give money. We volunteer to get out the vote. We blog and write and politely dismantle those liberal arguments at dinner despite the potential personal and social costs. We call the Blue Dogs. Then we call them again. We are dangerous. Like Reagan was.

You don’t need to expand the tent ideologically to squeeze us in.  No need to stretch and strain to coax us under.  We’re not the “moderates” who, once sheltered, proceed to torch the place.  No, we buy more tents.  And pitch them.  Far and wide.

Embrace us, RedStaters.  You will thank us later.

Fondly,

Equitare 

I am a new conservative, a young surgeon who, over the course of many years of grueling surgical education, has received a crash course in the triple evils of over-regulation, confiscatory taxation, and lawsuits run amok. Born a liberal, I voted strictly party lines right through 2004. Then came the Awakening. I have all of the pretty credentials and Ivy-League degrees on my wall, but I later learned that these were false badges of education.

I graduated from Yale 14 years ago versed in Derrida, Mackinnon, and Friedan, but with no knowledge of Burke, Sowell, or Hayek.  As a young woman there I wore my black turtleneck and drank espresso with my friends, burdened as we were by the heaviness of our existential angst.  What a joke.  It was not until years later that I realized that I (and my parents) had been had. Like the Founders I have sought to educate myself. And the truths I have discovered since that time have been liberating, inspiring, a true epiphany.

I like Sarah Palin. I embrace her truth-to-power moxie and unwavering advocacy of the core values. Like many I have had doubts about her 2012 viability and likewise found the subject annoying. I consider the era of Obama to be nothing short of a national political emergency.  2010 must be the focus now.  And it is in 2010 where she can be the most help.  This is all that matters in this moment.

I discovered this site after the election, when Erick Erickson launched his Operation Leper initiative. I am impressed with the site and have recommended it to many friends. But I find the recent attacks on Governor Palin depressing. And I don’t think I am alone.   The new moniker is silly: “She Who Must Not Be Named?”  Who comes up with this sort of petty nonsense?

Sarah Palin brings many burgeoning conservatives with her. Isn’t that what we want? Like me, many of her supporters report never having attended a political rally before taking the trip to one of hers. Like so many of you I have given to Rubio, Toomey, Simcox, and others. I gave to Tedisco. Prior to this year I had never supported any candidate financially.

What we want is more converts, more money, more votes, more support. What we want is liberty, freedom, prosperity, and security. Everyone here is smart, well-informed, and far better educated on the issues of the day than the Ivy’d elite. But we become no better than they when we close ranks on one of our own, belittle her personally, and ridicule her supporters, many of whom are new to our cause, the very cause we purport to hold so dear.

Instead of crying “Palinbot” or “Bot” or “Palin-head,” wouldn’t it be more constructive to offer something more like: “I see you’re new here… welcome!”

Is RedState becoming its own little enclave of conservative cognoscenti? Please “say it ain’t so.” I love this site.

Fondly,

Equitare, MD