The good folks at Conservatives for Patients Rights have put together a list of Congressional Town Meetings during the August recess. Check there to see if your Congressman wants to hear from you.

The response at recent lawmakers’ meetings with constituents is more or less in the vein of the response I recommended back during the first Tea Party. I’d note that I’d prefer a bit more citing of inconvenient facts and a bit less shouting, and it might be better if attendees didn’t show up with their outrage already turned up to 11 before the event begins. When you show up at a meeting with Lloyd Doggett with a sign depicting him as the devil, I’m wondering what’s left to do if he gives you an answer you really don’t like — draw a third horn on him?

Still, there’s a certain joy to watch Arlen Specter trying to persuade a public that it’s perfectly normal to farm out reading sections of a long bill to his staff, and try to justify that members of Congress “have to make judgments very fast.” Perhaps I’ll be proven wrong, but I suspect that we’ll look back on that moment as the one that destroyed his chances at reelection. This is the wrong cycle to ask for another six years with the justification, “this is the way we’ve always done things.”

Marc Ambinder is helpfully Tweeting, “Wrong q: whether or left or right will “win” the recess health care organizing. Right q: will right’s win be genuine or artificial or both?” Interesting that the right’s win is perceived as a fait accompli. (Rest assured, grassroots conservatives, that if you are active and your message is heard by nervous lawmakers, your victory in persuasion with be dismissed as “artificial.” Or at least not organic, or not gluten-free or something.)

I would note that the Democrats aren’t going into the August with the lead; they need to move public opinion in their direction. We’re seeing a few efforts on that front. First there is a sudden Orwellian insistence that this is “health insurance reform”; please ignore the past two and a half years of references to “health care reform.” We’re going to see this reaction at these town hall meetings dismissed as “Astroturf.” And we’re going to see relentless demonization of health insurers.

But I’m not sure “aren’t insurance companies terrible?” persuades Americans who are skeptical or nervous about ObamaCare. Yes, many voters have gripes with the current system, but they’re doubtful that any of the five versions of the legislation before Congress will improve things. If, indeed, the constituent meetings become a series of deer-in-the-headlights lawmakers running from masses immune to the usual spin and talking points, then it’s hard to see Democrats returning in September with more votes than when they left.