Activists say no letup for health care protests
by Erica Werner, AP

WASHINGTON – Conservative activists are vowing to keep up their fight against President Barack Obama's health care plans, even as the Democratic Party pushes back hard, accusing Republicans of organizing angry mobs.

Democrats and the White House are claiming that the sometimes rowdy protests that have disrupted Democratic lawmakers' meetings and health care events around the country are largely orchestrated from afar by insurers, lobbyists, Republican Party activists and others.

"This mob activity is straight from the playbook of high-level Republican political operatives," the Democratic National Committee says in a new Web video. "They have no plan for moving our country forward, so they've called out the mob."

Some of the activists who've shown up at town hall meetings held recently by Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., Rep. Steve Kagen, D-Wis., and others are affiliated with loosely connected right-leaning groups, including Conservatives for Patients' Rights and Americans for Prosperity, according to officials at those groups. Some of the activists say they came together during the "Tea Party" anti-big-government protests that happened earlier this year, and they've formed small groups and stayed in touch over e-mail, Facebook and in other ways.

But they insist they're part of a ground-level movement that represents real frustration with government spending and growth.

"There isn't any group that's backing me, who's influenced me, who's pushing me to do this," said Robert A. Mitchell, a small business owner from Doylestown, Pa., who questioned Specter at a weekend town hall event about lawmakers failing to read legislation.

The exchange was captured on YouTube and has spread, along with other videos. One showing protesters mobbing Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, includes footage of someone holding a sign showing Doggett with devil's horns; another shows Kagen shouted down at a meeting at a library.

At a forum in Little Rock on Wednesday, Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., sat with his head in his hands at one point while the crowd heckled him and Rep. Vic Snyder, accusing them of supporting government-backed care that would eliminate choice.

Mitchell said he was angered by push-back from the White House and it would motivate him to further activism, a view echoed by others.

"These are town hall meetings, and the federal government is trying to intimidate people," Mitchell said in a phone interview Wednesday.

Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele defended the activism, even as he denied the party was organizing it.

"We are not inciting anyone to go out and destruct anything," Steele told reporters on a conference call. "We're encouraging people to go and visit their congressman or their senator."

"To sit back and say that this is some Republican cabal is a bunch of baloney," Steele said.