Protesters interrupt McCain speech

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By Steven Martens and Tom Saul | Saturday, October 11, 2008 6:37 PM CDT | () comments

John McCain talks at the RiverCenter in Davenport on Saturday. (Andrew Link/Quad-City Times) Buy this Photo

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A group of about 20 protesters gathered Saturday morning outside the RiverCenter to voice their opposition to some of U.S. Sen. John McCain’s proposed policies and occasionally trade barbs with McCain supporters waiting across the street to get into the Republican presidential candidate’s rally.

The majority of the protesters were from Iowa for Health Care, which believes McCain’s proposal to tax employer-provided health-care benefits could result in 20 million Americans losing their health care coverage, said Andrew Mertens, a spokesman for the group.

Mertens said Saturday’s event was the fourth McCain rally the group has attended since spring.

“Not everybody who comes to these events is decided on Sen. McCain,” Mertens said. “There are a lot of undecided voters.”

Some of the protesters exchanged friendly verbal jabs with McCain supporters lined up across East 2nd Street to get into the event.

“Look at all these mavericks,” said Rudy Hernandez of Davenport, referring to the McCain supporters. Hernandez carried a sign protesting the war in Iraq and said he thinks Democratic nominee U.S. Sen. Barack Obama will end the war.

“I think Obama’s got a plan, and we need to see it come to fruition,” he said.

Hernandez said most of the verbal jousting was good-natured and an example of people exercising their right to disagree.

“This is what’s great about America,” he said.

About half a dozen of the protesters represented the Alliance for Retired Americans. They said they were concerned that McCain would privatize health care and Social Security.

Jim Hughes of Davenport, the Iowa vice president of the organization, said McCain’s health-care proposals would encourage employers to stop providing health-care coverage to their employees.

“It’s a ridiculous plan,” Hughes said. “It was written by insurance companies for insurance companies, and that’s who benefits from it.”

Michael Elliott, who is running as an independent for Scott County auditor, was outside the event courting voters on both sides and talking about his campaign, focused on protecting the integrity of the electoral process.

He said he had visited with the protesters and planned to talk to McCain supporters as they left the rally.

“We want to be the last impression they have,” he said.

Later in the day, former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack told Democratic elected officials, office seekers and activists at the United Food and Commercial Workers union hall in Davenport that Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama would bring a cool head to the Oval Office, while describing McCain’s behavior as “erratic.”

Vilsack criticized McCain’s health-care proposal as harmful to working people while Obama’s would assure that they paid less for care. He said Obama’s plans to stabilize the economy would assure that “taxpayers aren’t treated like suckers” while McCain’s would benefit primarily the wealthiest.

While acknowledging that he did not see or hear McCain’s speech, Vilsack also said it probably included nothing favorable about ethanol, an alternative fuel component that has been good for Iowa’s economy but which, he said, McCain has opposed for years.

“Barack Obama is on your side, and Sen. McCain is on someone else’s side,” Vilsack told the crowd of about 40. “That is what this election, at the end of the day, is all about. Do you want change or not?”

Steve Martens can be contacted at (563) 659-2595 or smartens@qctimes.com.

Earlier version: 11:21 a.m. -- Two protesters -- a man with a woman on his shoulders -- try to interrupt the McCain’s speech. The woman holds an anti-war sign that a McCain supporter takes from her while the crowd started chanting, “We want John” to drown the protesters out. “There’s an example of people who just don’t get it,” McCain said after the protesters were taken out. “They want to yell at people” when Americans need to be discussing how to bring about change.