I have no idea how it happened, but tonight, my phone rang and a voice on the other end of the phone said, “Please hold while I connect you to Congressman Dean Heller’s teletownhall.” They must have dialed a wrong number when they rang my phone, because it was clear from listening to the comments and questions, the rest of the participants were definitely Republicans … and I’m not. Needless to say and as expected, there were a few Democrat-bashing comments aimed at Obama and Jill Derby … and far too much flattery given to Mr. Heller on his activities in Washington. Heller also fished for information about how the Obama visit to Elko went this afternoon. Late in the call a lady from Elko finally answered his curiousity question saying that she had indeed attended it and that it was unbelievably positive reception for Obama, that people never sat. They just stood in excitement the whole time.

Questions raised by participants covered the full range of expected issues, from the cost of health care and the inability to obtain any form of insurance, to 2nd amendment gun-totin’ rights, to Imigration issues, Campaign negativity and deception, Energy, Education, the recent bailouts, and Yucca Mountain. Absent from the discussion were questions about our nation’s current financial situation, especially since Mr. Heller sits on the financial services committee. As instructed, I hit “zero” on my telephone keypad to get in the question cue, but apparently I didn’t do it quick enough because the hour ran out and the call ended before I could ask my question about our nations strained financial situation … you know the exploding national debt, budget deficit and earmarks.

Here’s a few of the highlights:

• Health Care — a Doctor from LV suggested that we don’t need the Health Insurance programs being touted by the Democrats, we just need to promote the use of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) which would allow people to pay for their health care needs with tax deferred dollars.
• 2nd Amendment — a couple of callers as well as Heller himself expressed their concerns about how Democrats (including Obama) “want to take your guns away.” Most Democrats aren’t concerned with a few hunting rifles … but I don’t know a sole who goes deer hunting sporting an uzzie. Come on, give it a rest, normal folks don’t need 5 or 6 uzzies hanging around to use for putting food on the table.
• Yucca Mountain … now this one was a surprise. Two different callers from down south grilled Heller about why he wasn’t supporting the use of Yucca mountain for storage and recycling of nuclear waste. I have to give him credit on this one, he stood firm and told both callers that he, Ensign and the governor were all adamantly against letting Nevada become the nation’s nuclear waste dump.
• Oil drilling … here again, Democrats ended up getting the blame for the Oil Companies not being able to drill off our coasts for the last 30 years. Hey … I seem to recall that Reagan and Bush Sr and Bush Jr have all served as Presidents during that moritorium … and I believe they’re all Republicans … so give it a rest guys … Republicans are just as guilty for preventing the drilling of our hemisphere into swiss cheese just to please the masses.

It will be interesting to see if they ever dial my number again … but if they do … I guarantee you I’ll be much quicker at hitting zero on my keypad.