Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit has the video evidence of the strategy used by Barack Obama to get a roomful of complacent supporters at his Portsmouth, New Hamsphire “town hall” yesterday. The group he launched, Organizing for America, had supporters bused into the event — and they went directly to the head of the line to get into the forum. It’s the quickest and most effective way to ensure that the President doesn’t have to answer any tougher questions than those about the “mean signs” of his opponents:

Jim Treacher suggested yesterday on Twitter that we rename these Presidential forums to “greenhouses,” although Treacher admitted that Obama forums have more plants than the average greenhouse. Michelle has more on the effort to plant the “mean signs” question with the 13-year-old daughter of an Obama activist and contributor as well.

Andrew Malcolm says this shows a desperation in the administration, and that even with the White House organization, Obama’s losing on the ground:

While Obama’s poll popularity has slipped somewhat, the popularity of his keystone programs has slid dramatically. Now, we fully understand why the president set that early August deadline for a completed bill. His internal polls predicted the kind of coalescing opposition we’ve seen recently in congressional town halls around the country.

Yes, many are no doubt orchestrated. But no more so than the president’s somnolent town halls with campaign volunteers asking questions and instructions e-mailed to millions of supporters with directions on where to go and what to say to members of Congress this month. …

The protesters may well be about disruptive stagecraft. But they wouldn’t get so much attention, wouldn’t ring true to many, if they also weren’t tapping into an invisible and widespread vein of worry and fear, even anger, abroad in the land. Who doesn’t know someone just like them suddenly blindsided into hopeless unemployment? Is that a time that families willingly countenance bold change? Or a time to hunker down with the known?

Last winter Obama’s urgent haste to sign an expensive economic stimulation package seemed to make sense if further fiscal shrinkage was to be avoided. Ironically, his ongoing cascade of reform programs, all allegedly urgently needed — and expensive — seem to add to uncertainty and fears.

And why the rush? Two-hundred-thirty-three years into nationhood and 16 years after Clinton’s flopped healthcare plan, what was so crucial about getting one by early August?

Because they knew this would be a loser if it got to the August recess, that’s why, and Andrew nails it in his piece. Be sure to read it all.