Denver Daily: Not all cheers for McCain, Protest groups greet GOP candidate with jeers

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.thedenverdailynews.com/article.php?aID=588

Protest groups greet GOP candidate with jeers
Peter Marcus, DDN Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 28, 2008


Unlike Sen. Barack Obama’s speech on the University of Denver campus four months ago, Sen. John McCain’s speech on the same campus yesterday was filled with protests both inside and outside the Cable Center.

The Republican didn’t make it 10 minutes into his speech before he was interrupted by several protesters. In fact, the interruptions came four separate times with chants to “end this war.” Those protesters were gradually removed from the room.

But each time, McCain fought back: “I will never surrender in Iraq,” he said. “Our troops will come home with victory and honor.”

While Obama stood with Caroline Kennedy in Denver, McCain only quoted her Democrat father about the rapid international growth of nuclear weapons.

“I’d like to get back to Jack Kennedy for a second,” he joked about the former president who passionately campaigned against the proliferation of nuclear weapons.


Even veterans blast him

McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, also met resistance from Colorado Veterans for America who say the senator let them down when he failed to support expanding educational benefits under the GI Bill.

“We’re just outraged he failed to vote for the increased funding,” said Jim Hudson, spokesman for Colorado Veterans for America. “We needed those votes.”

Hudson said he respects the fact that McCain fought during Vietnam. But he said the senator should follow through with his duties by voting for veterans benefits. A former veteran of the Vietnam War himself, Hudson added that the Iraq War cannot be won.

“John McCain has made it clear that he will not lose this war. Colorado Veterans for America believes this war has already been lost,” he said. “We created thousands of terrorists when we entered Iraq, when there were virtually none. When we entered, that’s when we lost this war.”


Foreign policy

Meanwhile, Colorado Democrats said yesterday that McCain’s approach to foreign policy would only result in greater economic woes for America, similar to the past eight years with President Bush.

“We already knew that George W. Bush and John McCain’s idea of foreign policy is an endless war in Iraq that has made America less safe,” said Congressman Ed Perlmutter, D-Lakewood. “Today’s speech and the senator’s op-ed raise serious questions about what John McCain actually believes, and how anyone can trust him on foreign policy to do anything but revive the worst of the Bush Administration’s failed policies.”

Perlmutter referred to a McCain op-ed yesterday in the Wall Street Journal Asia outlining a strategy for dealing with North Korea’s proliferation of nuclear weapons that the Washington Post called “remarkably similar to President Bush’s first-term rhetoric.”


McCain like Bush?

A liberal political action committee on Monday set up shop on the 16th Street Mall to attempt to raise awareness to similarities between Bush and McCain’s policies. MoveOn members asked Denver citizens to take the Bush-McCain Challenge. Similar to the old Pepsi-Coke challenge, the Bush-McCain challenge asks citizens if they can tell the difference between President Bush and Sen. McCain.

The quiz asks questions like: “Who promised that U.S. troops would be greeted as ‘liberators’ in Iraq?” The answer is McCain over Bush, though the quiz states, “Dick Cheney said that, too. In fact, McCain is more of a Bush-Cheney hybrid.”

“Out of all 60 people who took the quiz, no one got all five right,” said Linda Dugger, a volunteer who helped to organize the Denver quiz.


Changing minds

One Denver citizen who took the quiz said they were not planning on voting. But after having taken the quiz, they decided to vote for anyone but McCain.

The group says that a vote for McCain is a vote for Bush’s third term. To take the quiz, visit Bush-McCainChallenge.com.

Unions also got in on the McCain bashing yesterday outside the Cable Center, arguing that the senator is not committed to tackling the economic troubles of the country’s middle class.

“As a union member and veteran, I’m deeply offended by John McCain’s lack of attention to economic issues,” said Mike Coulter, a retired member of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. “McCain’s policies turn a blind eye toward the struggles of Colorado working people — including those who served their country with honor — grappling with rising prices for gas, food, health care and housing.”

Photo at link.