Picture this.

You’re an important person in a high-stakes debate. The country is energized; powerful interest groups are trying to influence its outcome. Whatever you decide will affect millions of people and cost billions of dollars. Everybody wants a piece of you.

You need real information, not prepackaged spiels from planted “citizens” or screeching from uninformed fear-mongers. You’re searching for a precious material: The valued opinions of real, flesh and blood citizens with no other interest than what’s important to them.

There are two ways to get it. One, you can hold a “town hall” meeting and invite all comers. It’s a risky proposition, because these meetings can easily be hijacked by those who scream loudest, which would yield nothing. Or, you can slide into some comfortable shoes and start walking.

Which would you do?

Sen. Olympia Snowe chose the latter. She walked through Lewiston, Portland and Bangor this week talking to real people about the soul-searching debate on health care. National pundits say she just might be the most important vote on the issue, given her position on the Senate Finance Committee.

In fact, Maine’s whole delegation has eschewed town hall-style meetings. Elsewhere across the nation, their colleagues are holding them, many of which are providing nothing but platforms for organized interests to loudly repeat talking points, rather than exercise the good old-fashioned Yankee tradition of civil discourse and respectful debate.

The bizarre online video of a bewildered Delaware Congressman, Mike Castle, being berated by one attendee regarding the president’s birth certificate — another canard — and then leading the crowd in an impromptu Pledge of Allegiance is Exhibit A for not holding these town halls.

Now, they don’t all melt down. Their value, however, might be minimal. Health care draws a crowd, and the crowds have been largely populated by partisans (in one form or another) who wish to promote an agenda. Real voices, from real people, can get drowned out.

That’s why Snowe has taken to the streets. We can’t blame her. She thinks there’s a better chance of getting valuable intelligence through a chance meeting than a town hall hootenanny. The way public forums have played out in other states, it’s a logical assertion. There is no guarantee they’d be different here. 

While we are staunch advocates for meeting the public face-to-face, it’s hard to pillory our delegation for deciding not to convene at town hall, in favor of smaller gatherings and Main Street walks. There is opportunity for real dialogue there, which has value.

This is a short-term courtesy, though. When the final legislation on health care reform finally comes forward for review, it will be essential for our congressional delegation to come before the Maine public and hear what they have to say. It’s OK not to walk into bear traps now.

But they will have to face us, sooner or later

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Paul Poliquin, owner of Paul’s Clothing and Shoe Store, speaks with U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, about the current health-care system at Poliquin’s store on Lisbon Street in Lewiston on Tuesday.