Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 6, 1994 TAG: 9404060074
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURA WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Mike Lindsey drove all the way from Rural Retreat to a Roanoke television studio Tuesday night just to ask President Clinton a question. But he couldn't hear the answer until he drove back home, settled down in front of the television set and hit the rewind button on his remote control.
What with the glare of the cameras, a little nervous tension and the volume turned down so he could speak his piece, Lindsey missed much of what the president said to him.
"I'll have to go home and watch it on tape," he said after the 90-minute program - aired live from NBC-affiliate studios in Roanoke; Bristol; Charlotte, N.C.; and Austin, Texas - concluded.
Roanoke station WSLS (Channel 10) played host to 17 Western Virginians as part of a four-station satellite interview orchestrated by the White House - part of a growing trend to bring the national political debate to small-town America via high technology.
Clinton answered questions from a studio in Charlotte, where he celebrated his home state's NCAA basketball victory the night before. He had planned the town meeting first, he emphasized, when a woman in the studio audience wanted to know what it cost taxpayers to send him to the game.
Lindsey, a self-employed health insurance salesman, wanted to know how the president's health plan would affect businesses such as his own. At least, that's the way he asked the question. What he really wanted to know was: If Clinton's plan passes, will he be out of a job?
"Your business will change, but you will still be in business," Clinton reassured him.
That much got through.
"Looks like I've got a secure job selling insurance for somebody," Lindsey said, although he still doesn't understand how independent salesmen will fit in once the small insurance companies he sells for all band together, as Clinton would have them do.
Many in the four audiences had questions relating to health care, but there also were queries about Clinton's handling of foreign policy, the national deficit and, of course, Whitewater.
"Are you one of us middle-class people, or are you in with the villainous, money-grubbing Republicans?" asked one woman in Charlotte, quite pointedly.
Pressed into an unusual posture, Clinton found himself defending his rival party, himself and his wife, Hillary - all in one breath.
"I don't think that all Republicans are villainous," he told the woman, and then explained that while his wife's investment in the late 1970s earned them a considerable amount of money, it didn't hurt anyone in the process, and they had not been found guilty of any wrongdoing.
One couple Clinton did not hear from was one that would have given him a lot of support, had they been called on. While 15 of the 17 people in Roanoke's studio audience were selected by WSLS, Harold and Louise Francisco came at the invitation of the White House.
Louise Francisco, it seems, had written to the president to complain about her husband's loss of his health insurance after he was treated for chest pain. The insurance company thought he had a heart attack, so it dropped him.
The Franciscos - unlike the famous "Harry and Louise" featured on insurance company-sponsored television commercials that criticize the Clinton health plan - want Clinton's reforms to pass.
"We're for it," they said cheerfully, as they headed for their seats.
by CNB