Why not emulate Bill Maher’s “New Rules”? He had a great idea, so let’s rip it off.

New Rule: When you have a “Town Hall” meeting, the whole town has to be invited. Otherwise it’s a staged party-members-only event. Bush became infamous for these stacked-audience love-in events, pretending as if they were open to anyone while at the same time, severely restricting the audience to the party faithful and sometimes even requiring loyalty oaths to be signed. And even then, the questions were usually screened and rehearsed, and were either softball questions that allowed Bush to pitch his selling points, or they were unabashed gushing compliments to our Dear Leader.

California Governor Schwarzenegger has been doing the same kind of thing, and even Senator McCain criticized this after attending one to support Schwarzenegger:

As at many of Schwarzenegger’s campaign events, outsiders were not allowed to attend what the governor’s office called a “town hall meeting” at a hotel near Oakland’s airport. Union protesters gathered outside the venue carrying signs. …

At a subsequent news conference, McCain, a possible candidate for U.S. president in 2008, said he had always favored town hall meetings open to the public, adding that some especially noisy dissenters had occasionally been ejected. “The benefit of an open town hall meeting is one that you get to hear a lot of different views, and two it has credibility,” said McCain.

Couldn’t have said it better. Of course, many Republican politicians don’t want that; look at what happened when Kerry tried it: he was often heckled and jeered at by conservatives who came for no other reason than to make him look bad. He didn’t always have open events, but even his closed events were far less restricted. So, far more often, Kerry paid the cost of hearing different views and having credibility, and some Republicans know full well that they don’t need or want either.

Well, too bad. You have a closed event, it’s not a “town hall.” It’s a rally for the party faithful.