Ron Wyden at Newberg town hall/Randy Stapilus

Two to three years ago, turnout at Senator Ron Wyden‘s Yamhill County town hall ranged upward of 100, to 200 and more. Big crowds that filled large rooms. Not so much this weekend, when Wyden came to Newberg; only about 20 county residents showed up. (The lower turnout levels is evidently part of a pattern this year.) Those who came had specifics on their minds, but the tone overall was more easy going than in some past halls.

This was number 611 among Wyden’s Oregon town halls, and the senator’s approach to it was easy and relaxed; he’s had plenty of practice. The residents did call for some explanations on a string of tough topics, for example.

The county Democratic chair said she’d been asked by a number of local Democrats about Wyden’s cooperative venture on health care policy with Republican Representative Paul Ryan; it sounded to many of them, she suggested, as if Wyden was giving up ground on the health care fight. Wyden’s response was that he wasn’t, that the effort with Ryan was very preliminary, far from the point of drafting a bill, at more an exploratory point, to find out what ideas they might have in common. He cited a few but suggested that the conversation is only in early stages.

He expressed hope that diplomacy and sanctions may accomplish enough in dealing with prospective Iran nuclear weapons, and he advised the Occupy movement (through one local McMinnville Occupy activist present) to start getting more specific on what they want.